Friday, March 30, 2007

Finally Finished!

I finished the seemingly endless Socka socks for DH I've been working on for months. They've been my "take in the car just in case (JIC?)" socks. I used the alternating 2 X 2 rib pattern from SKS. They were supposed to be done for Christmas. I guess they'll be an April Fool's day present now.

Since I had a free set of needles, rather than finish another sock project, I cast on for a new sock using an Opal yarn from the pre color names/numbers/dyelots era. It's in rusty red, burgundy, navy, eggplant and brown. It looks better knitted up than on the skein. Somehow I didn't expect stripes. A friend brought it from PT Yarns in Oregon (the US Opal distributor's store). I traded some of my Opal Tiger to her for the yarn and considered myself lucky (except when I think of what I could have sold the Tiger for on Ebay a few years back.) I didn't like the Tiger: it was too coral pink, not really tiger colored at all.

I thought I was going to make the Monkey socks but this yarn is not right for that pattern. When I got home today my new book More Sensational Knitted Socks had arrived from Knitpicks. I picked out a six stitch broad spiral rib pattern and it's looking good, very subtle and somewhat masculine. I have some Shelridge Farms hand dyed yarn that may look better in the Monkey pattern. I'm already itching to start them too. I will have to curb my enthusiam for new projects and hunker down to one sock at a time if I want to finish a pair every week for the 52 pair plunge challenge.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Both pairs are really really good! Love them. Esp the top pair.

Unknown said...

alternating rib-dyou mean like this:

k2 p2 for 4-8 rounds and then shift over 1 st for the next 4-8 rounds?

Margie said...

Basically yes. The pattern is in Sensational Knitted Socks. 2X 2 alternating rib. K2 P2 for 5 rounds, then K2T, P2 for one round, then P2, K2 for 5 rounds and repeat. The K2T is the baby cable: K2TOG TBL, then K the 2nd stitch again.