These are the first socks I’ve attempted in about, oh, say 8 years. The other two pairs I’ve made were a baby size pair of socks in a worsted weight that I made for a learn to knit socks workshop, and then a plain stockinette pair with 2x2 rib at the top. Made out of Lion Brand Wool Ease. Yep, you read that right. Wool. Ease. Not to disparage Wool Ease in and of itself. It’s got its uses. Just not for socks (in my not so humble opinion.)

My mom loved them so much that she wore holes in them within a month. Fixing them was a problem because even though the Wool Ease has limited wool content (20% I think), all the friction and wear and tear felted the areas around the holes. Besides that, I knit them on around size 2 needles with worsted weight yarn. Yep, they could pretty much stand up on their own. Literally. So, now I’m going to attempt a new pair with fingering yarn, size 1 needles a lace pattern (although it’ a nice and simple lace pattern). And I have my trusty Charlene Schurch’s Sensational Knitted Socks book to help me out if I get stuck.

The color is closest to that in the photo of the yarn at the bottom. Go figure!

Planned modifications:

• Not really a mod, but I decided to go with the ribbing at the cuff rather than the scallop pattern. Just easy to get my gangly, gawky, out of practice with dpns, fingers used to the size 1s again. It looks like most of the projects here use the scalloped egde, so maybe I’ll try them again that way some time.

• Doing 3 complete repeats of the pattern round repeat but not the extra ten rounds, in order to lower the sock a bit. This has three advantages: my mom prefers shorter socks, I am worried about running short of yarn and I think this will allow me to have enough, and I’m worried about running out of time.

9/27/10
After a few false starts, I’ve gotten into a good rhythm on the first sock and am now well into the foot. I probably have about 2 inches left until starting the toe shaping. Once I really got going, I actually found that turning the heel and doing the gusset and everything was pretty simple. It helps that the pattern is well written. I’m finding this to be a good “reacquaintance with socks” pattern--the lace adds enough to keep my interest, but isn’t so difficult that it makes doing the pattern tedious and taxing.

9/29/2010

Sock number 1 is complete, and I’ve only used about 75% of one skein of this yarn. I think I may have enough left over when I’m done to knit a little hat or something…

10/01/2010

I’m breezing through the second sock now that I’ve got the pattern down and am reacquainted with knitting with DPNs.

10/04/2010

Well I had to do some frogging. I ended up picking up the gusset stitches unevenly, and it was noticeable enough to annoy me. I ended up frogging all the way back through the heel flap to the last few rounds of the leg. I guess that’s what I get for saying I was “breezing” through the second sock. Once I got past that roadblock though, I did manage to finish the second sock in a marathon of knitting over the past few nights. Yay!

Socks are now blocking.