I've been Remiss

It's been a busy few weeks, and the only posts I've made are the really easy ones, with almost nothing about knitting. I've been knitting all along, just not writing about it. I finished one of my Monkey socks and am halfway down the leg on sock two. The second sock should be finished this weekend, just in time to meet my 52 Pair Plunge goal of a finished pair every week. This is one of the easiest patterns I've ever knit and it looks so wonderful knitted up. Sorry for the terrible picture, more to come.

Unless I wanted to knit with sportweight yarn, I had to add an entire repeat to the pattern to enlarge it. Since the repeat was a huge 16 stitches, making a total of 80 stitches cast on, I tightened the gauge so the sock wouldn't be too large for even my fat ankles. I cast on 72 stitches with a 2.25 mm needle and knit my ribbing. On the first round of the pattern I increased 8 stitches evenly around. I knit 5 repeats of the pattern 9 times, lengthening the leg a little bit.

When I got to the heel I realized that since I had 5 repeats of the pattern, it would not divide evenly. It was at this point that I realized the error of my ways. I centered the heel over 2 repeats and knit my new favorite, the band heel. I tightened the gauge a little bit more (went down to a 2 mm needle) and knit the foot of the sock with 3 repeats of the pattern stitch on the instep (48 stitches) and 32 stitches on the sole in stockinette. At the toe I adjusted the markers so that the top and bottom had the same amount of stitches to do the decreases. I also ran out of yarn. Panic ensued. This is the same wonderful yarn Cookie A used in her sample sock, although I used a different color way. It's hand dyed, and I've had the yarn in my stash for several years. I should have known this might happen, given that I knit more repeats on the leg and added 16 stitches around, but I went blithely on knitting. A search of my stash revealed several possible substitutions to knit the toe with. Lorna's Laces semi solids are wonderful yarns in the same weight and subtle colors. I had periwinkle and denim blue, left over from other sock projects. I held both colors up to the SIP and the periwinkle looked more promising. 20 decrease rounds later and sock one was finished. I immediately cast on for sock two, not wanting to slow the momentum & miss meeting my goal. I'm about ready to turn the heel, so I will now return you to your regularly scheduled program and get back to knittng.
UPDATE: Sock two was finished Monday 5/7/07!

Thanks so much to Cookie for another wonderful sock pattern. The first time I knit one of her patterns it was the Pomatomus. I would recommend getting your feet wet with the Monkey socks before tackling the Pomatomus, but it is another pattern that is well worth the effort. Several more Cookie A patterns are on my short list of future sock projects.