I love the detail of these socks and often find myself attracted to bird motifs. If you’ve not taken the time to read the whole pattern, let me save you some disappointment now---basically the entire length of the sock is knitted flat to allow for clean intarsia, then you seam up the tree. So all the anti-purling sock love kinda’ goes away, but they are still a fun knit.

I finished these just in time to wear them for St. Pat’s Day! So happy with how they turned out. The embroidery portion was quite fun and really went pretty quickly. I added a couple of birds that were not included in the pattern notes and simply used google images as inspiration. Here are links to my purple martin and blue bird models. I also added some small flowers to give the socks a springy feel.

WORKING NOTES
Cast On
These are my first toe-up socks, and I used this great youtube vid to do the CO. I highly recommend!

At the end of the heel flap section, I had 76 total sts on the needles instead of 67. This happened with both socks, so either I’m consistently stupid, or there is an error in the pattern. So, I continued to knit rounds and decrease via k2tog/ssk at the same points where the previous ssk/p2tog heel flap decreases had been placed. This worked out just fine, and Maigret had the exact same issue, so methinks VK needs to publish an error :-)

When I had 67 stitches on both needles (I knitted these on two circs, so one circ had 33 sts and was treated as DPNS#1&2 and the other circ held 34 sts and was treated as DPNS#3&4) I attached the two brown bobbins to begin the base of the tree, placing the seam right up the back of the sock/tree trunk.

Chart notes:
Odd numbered rows = knit rows
Even numbered rows = purl rows
Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but I’ve had to alter the increases (changing the placement of them) within the colorwork because otherwise it gets all screwed up.

Bobbin notes:
Start with two brown, 1 black, adding in additional bobbins in both colors as new branches sprout from the tree trunk.

I highly recommend knitpick’s rubber bobbins or something similar for this project. 7+ bobbins on a sock can get crazy quick.

Finishing notes:

I needed a bit of a refresher on vertical seaming when it came time to sew up the back of sock #1. This article (particularly the illustrations) was super helpful!

Sock #1 Progress notes:
1/11 - now ready to begin chart row #4
1/13 - now ready to begin chart row #26
1/15 - now ready to begin chart row #36
1/16 - now ready to begin chart row #63
1/18 - now ready to begin chart row #74
1/22 - now ready to begin chart row #83
1/23 - now ready to begin chart row #103
1/25 - now ready to begin chart row #116
1/27 - now ready to begin chart row #122
1/28 - now ready to begin chart row #128
1/30 - now ready to begin chart row #146
2/3 - now ready to begin chart row # 170
2/7 - now ready to begin chart row # 207
2/11 - now ready to begin chart row # 222

2/12 - end of sock 1 is in sight! I bought all the necessary embroidery floss today. Getting excited!

2/13 - sock #1 is off the needles! Started embroidering and casted on sock #2! Woohoo!

2/15 - embroidery is super fun… have three birds and a bunch of leaves done on the completed sock and am simultaneously working on sock #2

2/18 - still progressing on sock #2 (almost ready for gussets) and finished embroidery on sock #1! Things are moving along now :-)

2/20 - sock #1 is DONE!!!! sock #2 has been heel turned and flapped and I’m on row 15 or so of the chart!

2/23 - now ready to begin chart row # 63 sock #2

3/5 - 68% of sock #2 is done! Making progress!

3/8 - now 80% done with sock #2 :-)

3/12 - On the homestretch. Will have all the knitting done this afternoon and will be embroidering like crazy. I set a goal to wear these to a St. Pat’s day event and I think I’m going to make it!

Biz Travel Knitting!
As an aside--I’ve knit these mostly during down time on business trips. Thus far, they have been knitted in airplanes to and from:

• Grand Cayman

• Bismarck, ND

• Chicago, IL

• Orlando, FL

• Minneapolis, MN

• Milwaukee, WI

• Chicago, IL (again)

• Dallas, TX

• Indianapolis, IN