First, my apologies if the title leaves you whistling terrible songs all day.  That song pops into my head every single time I hear someone talk about manly socks (with the substitution of the word ‘socks’ wherever you hear ‘men’ of course).  I wouldn’t want to speculate as to why exactly this happens, but it does. Hopefully I’ve spread the pain a bit. Now with that out of the way, on to the socks. See?

The goal was socks that were thick, blue, and guy-friendly.

I’m confident I’ve gotten the thick part down, and pretty comfortable about the blue part.  That’s Dream in Color’s new(ish) yarn Everlasting in Tidal.  This is the 12 ply that I used (and loved) in Carom.  It is definitely thicker than a traditional sock yarn.  It is, in fact, not really a sock yarn at all.  These are much closer to slipper socks than to ‘stuff them in shoes’ socks.  Dream in Color does offer Everlasting in an 8 ply sock yarn for those who want a more traditional sock weight.  I, however, wanted something super thick, and this seemed perfect.

Now for the guy-friendly part.  This one is always tricky to judge.  First, and most importantly, guys are no more a homogeneous set than are girls.  I know for a fact that there is at least one guy out there who has knit Gramercy in a lovely pale peach and is totally rocking them.  But most of the guys that I knit for would not really love pale peach lace.  They tend to lean more toward the more somber end of the color spectrum and to prefer to avoid lacy or swoopy designs.

I’m hoping that the straight lines, complete lack of anything that could be seen as lace, and decidedly blue coloring will help it pass muster as a boy sock.  And if not, I will steal them back and wear them myself because I love super thick socks with an unholy passion.  And if they do pass muster, I see another pair in this yarn for me in my immediate future (I may possibly have several more skeins of this yarn sitting right on the very top of my stash).

Oh, and on an unrelated administrative note, I got some exciting news the other day that may necessitate just a bit of schedule shifting.  I will still be putting the two patterns mentioned the other day out very soon, and I will totally put the hat out first, but I may be shifting the schedule back by a few days.