I’ve been really fantasizing about knitting some socks. It has been bitter cold here in Denver for almost a month. It got really cold for a few weeks in Decemeber, warmed up a little the first week of January, now it’s back down to 3 degress (according to the weather app it “feels like” -12) so I’ve been wearing my fantabulastical socks from SockDreams (seriously, check that site out OMG!). However, being a knitter I am kind of ashamed I haven’t knit my own socks. NO MORE! I picked up a few skeins of yarn yesterday, enough to make three pairs of socks, one chunky, one worsted, one fingering. I will be using the three patterns from this Patons booklet about socks. It’s very well written, straight forward & simple, plus it has great pictures. They use a different color yarn for each step when walking through the instructions. For the chunkies I picked out a cute ombre blue yarn. It’s pretty low-end yarn but that’s cool. If it turns out like crap then NBD! I’ll save the uber-expensive cornbread-fed-striped-yak-that-lives-in-my-living-room-tweezer-hand-plucked-single-fur-at-a-time-gold-fleck-hand-painted “special” yarn for when I’m a little better at socks.

1/14 - Cast on for the medium size since I wear a size 7 shoe. Although I will say this: I do NOT like baggy socks. But to be even more difficuly I would like these to be slouchy socks. So I guess I don’t really know what’s going on. Knit a few inches of ribbing then passed out cold with the DPNs poking me in my bed. Yeah, that’s how I roll.

1/18 - This seemed to go really smoothly. It’s my back burner, portable mindless go-to project plus I really do need a pair of thick socks & totally dig the colors, but I’ve only been working on it sporadically. I knit 13” of top part so they will be long enough to hit the bottom of my knee. I sat in my bedroom to get some peace & quiet to concentrate on doing the heel but the instructions were good & it went well. I will say this though, there was one issue I had with the pattern. When doing the heel flap it said to repeat 2 pattern row 7 times but it made the longest heel flap EVER! I looked at the picture & it looked like there were about 7 rows all together so I think they wanted you to only repeat one row 7 times. I had to rip it out but after knitting 7 rows it looked like the right size. I got to the end of the heel part & called it quite before getting to the instep.

1/21 - I knit the instep decreases & an extra few rows then decided to try it on. The calf fits perfectly!!! (YAY) The heel also fits great but it felt a little loose through my arch so I’m going to rip out the few rows I knitted & do 2 more decreases in the instep before knitting straight through the toe. I’m also going to need to go get another ball of yarn! I’m getting low & will need a third ball before starting the second sock.

1/30 - I ripped out the rows back to the last decrease. I added two more decreases then knit the instep. Since there were fewer stitches than the pattern called for I had to do some minor mods to finish the toe decreases. I followed the directions for the toe decreases & just had two fewer stitches on the top of the foot. I kitchener stitched the toe shut & voila! A perfect sock!!! It fits perfect although the next time I make a sock I may want to make the ankle are a little tighter. I wanted these to be slouchy socks so for this pair a loose ankle isn’t an issue.

1/31 - Cast on for the second sock while waiting for Devon’s mask to soak at our leather mask making class we took at the Fusion Factory (it’s a great place & that’s where I taught the gauntlet armwarmer class a few weeks ago, they have all kinds of different classes there for people who want to make their own costumes & decorations).

1/6/14 - I decided to get this second sock done. How funny, it took me a year to get the second one done & only about an hour of knitting! I followed the same mods as I did on the first sock but somehow this one seems a little tighter. I don’t really know but they’re fine, it’ll stretch out with wear. I wore them all weekend & they even work well without slippers since the yarn is so thick! LOVE!!!