Please note that I have changed the name of this pattern to VRILLE. No changes to the design though!

Suckage.

That was my knitting word for 2010. I first heard it in a sock design class at KnitNation in July, and it came from CookieA, my instructor and one of my design heroines. Suckage is the effect that cables have on knit fabric – the way they draw it in and make it tighter than stockinette stitch across the same number of stitches. We actually spent over half an hour in our class discussing the mathematical principles of suckage, and how to account for it in sock design. That class is what pushed me to design my first cable & lace sock and publish it on Ravelry. Then along came Suzan O’Brien, the artist behind Barking Dog Yarns, who asked me to design a sock for a KnitALong (KAL) with her Ravelry group of the same name. 2010 was a great year for Suzan, as she launched,
among other products, a new series of sock yarns called Opposites Attract, which are sold as paired mini skeins of 50g each, dyed to complement each other. When I opened my parcel and laid eyes on the Bonnie & Clyde colourway, I knew that the cable idea that had been floating around in my head
for some time would work really well with the “Opposites” theme.

This pattern was released as a series of Clues for a Barking Dog Yarns Mystery KAL through February 2011. It is a top-down design, with lots of cables to keep the knitting challenging, and which create a really cozy, snug sock.