In other news, socks. I've been on a minor (ok, obsessively major) sock knitting kick lately. I have no idea why, because it's 90 F here every day, and I can't even imagine a time in the future when I'll need socks here. I'm going on a quick trip to the motherland of the Dakotas in a week- maybe I'll just pack ALL of my socks and switch pairs 5 times each day. My husband will think I'm nutso, but I'm pretty sure he already does, so.
I finished the first sock of a pair of Jaywalkers the other night. I know that people are crazy crazy about this pattern, which is why I picked it this time, but I admit it's not my favorite. I felt like this particular sock took a life age, which isn't helped by the fact that I can't take gauge properly and had to rip back an entire leg. The pattern warns you about getting proper gauge, and dang it, it's true. I was using size 1s (normally I use 2s for sock yarn) and I could not even get that thing over my heel. Even now that the gauge is proper and the whole thing is done, I have to tug pretty hard to get it over my heel. Once that's done the fit is great, though. This is a skein of Knit Picks Bare that I dyed in... 2010? I went on a dyeing binge that year, then haven't dyed anything since. I think I was going for a peacock-y look here. It's mostly dark blue but there's a bit of purple, black, and a teal-ish color, too. Pretty.
Ok, so this sock. Story: my youngest brother, shall we say, marches to the beat of his own drum. I have never seen that kid wear matching socks, even at his own wedding. So I thought it would be fun if, for his birthday, I knitted him two different socks so he could mix them up properly, Dobby-style. I knew that Plymouth Yarns Happy Feet comes in one-sock skeins, so I went on Ravelry, found someone who wanted to destash two different skeins in manly colors, and bought them from her. When the package came in the mail, I found that she had super generously sent me TWO of each color instead of the one we agreed on. Now, I'm not complaining about getting more yarn than I thought I was getting... but there went my plan out the window. Wasn't gonna knit one sock from each color and half one socks' worth of each left! I don't know anyone else goofy enough to wear mis-matched socks. I decided that the best course of action was to abandon the original plan and knit two matching pairs of socks. I started this pair with the intention of giving them to my father-in-law for Christmas. The whole time I was knitting, I kept thinking, there's not enough yarn. But I KNOW that I've made a sock from a Happy Feet skein, and even had leftovers, so I persevered. I got to the end of the skein, and guess what? Not enough yarn. So I ordered some Stroll from Knit Picks in matching-ish color for the toes, started knitting the toe, and still. Not gonna make it. The sock feels really dense to me, like the yarn is thicker than fingering? I finally gave it up and decided it's got to come out. I'll go up a needle size and down 4 stitches, and see what happens. It may feel like I'm playing it fast and loose with this sock, but you know what? We're doing it live.
When I ordered the Stroll for the toes, I may have accidentally ended up with two more skeins of sock yarn in my basket. Oopsie.
Unrelated so socks, this week I released a totally revamped version of my first-ever pattern from 2009, Cascading Cables Fingerless Mitts. I added a mitten option, fixed any mistakes, brought the pattern up to my current style sheet, and had it test knitted.
Redoing this pattern had been on my mind for six months at least, so I'm really glad to have gotten a chance to get it done. You can find the new pattern on Ravelry here.
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