These socks are made with true entrelac on the cuffs. Although this is not a technique that’s traditionally recognized as a special Lithuanian technique, I have seen it on more than a few pairs of mittens in museum collections, as well as in vintage knitting books published in Lithuania and Russia.

One of my favorite parts of creativity is variations on a theme. Whether it’s a jazz riff, a poem, a series of sketches, or even just doodles, there’s something inspiring about seeing how one simple idea can be changed, expanded, revised, or turned upside down and inside out to create something that appears entirely different. I love experimenting with variations on a theme in my knitting, too. Take a pattern stitch and knit it up in lace-weight, worsted-weight, and super-bulky yarn, or use the same yarn and try the stitch out on three different sizes of needles.

Sometimes I like to work the same design in solid, heather, and variegated yarns, or use the same pattern stitch on a pair of socks, gloves, and mittens in different colors, or on a sweater, a shawl, and fingerless gloves in yarns made from different fibers.

I love when things are related but not identical, and variations on a theme are used on many projects in this book. Several have companion accessories that play off of each other with a change in scale. Because I had so much yarn left over from a pair of mittens made with these colors, I could not resist making a matching pair of socks.