FO: Orange Pooled Socks

Pattern: my own
Yarn: handgefaerbt.com Merino Extra Fine in Little Zentaur
Needles: Knit Picks Options, size 1
Started: May 6, 2009
Finished: August 19, 2009
Ravel It!

Whew! Finally a finished project. I haven't had one of those since... **rifles through the archives** ...Well, I haven't had one of those blogged since... late April! At last count I have four (4!) unblogged finished projects. The addition of some sock blockers should alleviate that congestion.

The Socks

I started this pair of socks way back in May before I went on vacation to Florida. My plan was to knit (mostly) on them while I was away and blog/tweet about it. The pattern I chose was Mad Color Weave, and I actually did manage to knit quite a bit on them while I was away. All the rain in Florida while we were there helped. It wasn't until the last few days of vacation that I tried them on to find I couldn't get them past my heel. The pattern just didn't have enough stretch.

Disheartened, I packed the socks away and knit on another pair the rest of the way and on the flight home. It wasn't until that project stalled that I picked these back up. I didn't have the heart to completely frog the sock, so I left the cuff and restarted in my own pattern. I continued the 3x1 ribbing down the front and back and expanded the two stitch cables at the sides to every four rows instead of every two. Other than that, they're regular cuff-down, heel-flap socks.

The Yarn

I ordered this yarn for my birthday last year and finished the socks nearly a year later. I love the colors and the way they pooled on these socks. One thing that bugs me about yarn dyed like this is the white spaces between the color changes. But the way these knit up, the white does not distract. I also have a feeling the two socks would have matched if not for most of the first cuff being knit with frogged yarn.

My fingers turned orange whenever I knit on these, and they put off quite a bit of dye when I washed them. The yarn was super soft to work with and the twist was interesting. I don't know enough about yarn to explain it, but it wasn't your typical sock yarn. I'm not sure how well it holds up as I have not yet worn these socks and I won't until the fall. I reserve my knit socks for wear with jeans in the cold months. I'm not one that can pull off fancy colored socks and sandals.

Final Verdict

My only disappointment with these socks is that I didn't use as much yarn as I could have. One of the drawbacks of knitting from the top down. I tried to employ my digital scale and guess at how much yarn each part (leg, heel, foot) would weigh, but I ended up with 48 grams of yarn left over.

Otherwise I love these socks. I love the color orange and try to incorporate it as much as I can within reason. These will be perfect peeking out from the bottom of jeans this fall. I also love the fit as I guessed correctly on foot length. These will not be bunching up at the heel. All-in-all a solid pair of socks.

Grafting the toe

Almost done with sock number two. I like to graft really loosely and then come back with a needle to snug things up, stitch by stitch. I'm thinking about making some sock blockers from cardboard. Maybe I can use those as a template for some wood ones. FO post this weekend hopefully.

A brief update

It was really nice to knit at lunch today. I needed it, it's been a hell of a Monday. This is the vacation sock I started back in May. The originally intended pattern didn't work out, so I switched to a much simpler one that's mostly 3x1 ribbing. I love the way it's pooling.

Now that I have a new phone from which I can take pictures and blog, perhaps I can get some shorter updates posted here more often. No promies though :)