Forget Me Not Socks, the Pair

Forget Me Not Socks, the Pair
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Here at last is a photo of the socks I finished on Tuesday. I forgot to upload the photo yesterday, but it IS a good one--the colors are really accurate.

These socks, Forget Me Not from a pattern I linked to on July 31, are really comfy and soft. Panda Cotton really feels "dry" to the touch and has a very matte sheen. They just look and feel like they will be cool summer socks! I'll test that over the weekend! They also look good with capri-length pants, which is not true of regular-length socks IMHO. And pastels were a nice break from my trend of more saturated colors. All in all, even though the edge is a bit loose, I liked these socks. I like the second sock better than the first, because I tightened up my knitting and the holes came out looking better. Also the pooling was more interesting with the slightly tighter gauge.

Next?

So, with all the socks I knitted from late June until the beginning of August, you'd think I'd be zooming off on my next one.

Nope. I have this beautiful Sea Wool sock yarn in the amazing colorway Hercules (pictured in the sock yarn post on the top). I cast on for the socks on the yarn label, like I mentioned in my last post, and got 3 repeats into the pattern on Wednesday. Well, ICK. My crappy knitting style, or the fates, or something, caused there to be a gap between the K2tog and the SSK. No matter how tightly I yanked those stitches, the gap was there. It didn't help, probably, that the gap was strategically placed to fall between needles (however, I was magic looping, and even gapped where there was no needle break). WAH. I'll try the pattern some other time, because I do like it.

Then I said OK, I will try the eyelet lace free Wendy pattern on the Loopy Ewe site. I made a really nice toe with a wonderful Turkish cast-on and marveled at the things the yarn was doing. Then I did 3 repeats of THAT pattern. Well, it looked like crap. You could not see the eyelets and the knit accent stitches were big and stretched out. The yarn and the pattern did not like each other. So I frogged that, but kept the pretty toe.

I said, OK I will make something up, as we were driving to Artz Rib House in Austin to eat barbecue and listen to the fabulous Chris Gage and Michael Austin (plug for friends). I tried a slip stitch pattern that resembled linen stitch. Well, yes, it looked good. But, duh, the slip stitch part was shorter than the bottom of the foot part. Nope, couldn't do that one unless it was only on the leg, and it would take up a lot of yarn. Frogged that.

Came home in a foul knitting mood. I knew what I wanted. It was something with a uniform texture that would mottle the colors even more than they already are, to make it look "tweedy." Then, lo and behold. I spied the package that had come in the mail from Loopy Ewe land. It contained a pattern for a very simple sock featuring a nifty texture pattern based on doing something interesting with a slip one, knit 1, PSSO (not an SSK). AHA! I tried THAT one, and yay!!! It looks really cool. Even Lee said so ("That part of the sock looks different. It's cool.").

So, on the fourth try, the Sea Wool socks are at last chugging along.

Bonus, Mail Call

Though I have made all these socks in the past 5 weeks or so (like, 5 pairs!) I now have more sock yarn. I am having a HARD time resisting the work of fiber artists. And today's mail contained two more sock yarns--one is that Smooshy Dream in Color yarn in "Pale Fire," which is pink with tinges of mauve/light purple in it. The other merino blend sock yarn in really subtle and lovely shades of violet and is called New Jersey in Superwash Me by JK . Oh I am bad. But, but, I did manage to buy nothing in the latest release of stuff at that addictive site!! And I even got to it before it was totally picked over!

OK, so...I also got two sock patterns, that simple one I mentioned earlier and a complex Cookie A model. AND those cute wooden sheep sock blockers everyone else seems to have. They will make sock photo time a little easier, and are just so CUTE. I think I' will keep recent socks on them, and put them on display.