Socks

I seem to be on a bit of a sock kick at the moment having managed to finish my first pair of toe-up socks using the MUMTUS recipe . I did enjoy knitting socks this way actually and I've now got all enthusiastic about toe-up socks and been searching out and faveing patterns on Rav like there's no tomorrow!  However, as is the way of knitters, I'm sure the mania will pass as soon as something else pretty catches my attention.  Toe-up does seem quicker to me than the top down method and magic loop is easy to do, I love Wendy's magic cast on and I used Jeny's surprisingly stretchy cast off for the top.  Mason is delighted with his new socks and is currently wearing them to school and showing them off to all and sundry!  I just hope none of the neighbours looked out of their bedroom windows this morning to see me sitting in the backyard photographing my own feet!

I'm not overly keen on the yarn or the colour to be honest.  It is the Zettl sockenwolle from Lidl a couple of years ago, it is supposed to be machine washable but I know from experience of the socks I knitted for Patrick in the grey colourway...it isn't machine washable!!  They felted and would do a small child as a pair of boots!  I chucked them out after trying in vain to get them onto my own feet and realising that even if I found someone they would fit, they were so stiff and uncomfortable, said person would not wear them anyway.  Anyhow, I'll have to make sure this pair are handwashed.  I liked the colourway when I started knitting the foot but there is a bit of pooling around the heel gussett on both socks.  Then I tried to get a bit fancy and knit the leg in a 3 x 1 rib.  This was a mistake, far too much variegation to take any pattern whatsoever, they just look messy to me. 
 

Buoyed by my success in getting them finished though, I got a hankering to knit myself a pair of lacy pink socks.  Pink because I've had this yarn in stash for yonks and lacy because I had lacy in mind when I bought the yarn.  I'm really not a pink girl normally, it doesn't suit me at all.  However, for socks I can probably get away with it :-).  A quick search on Ravelry for toe up socks found me the simple lace pattern of Bubbles Down the Drain by Staci Perry (Rav link).  The description of how to knit the toe part seemed rather complicated in the pattern so I decided to go with Wendy's Magic Cast on and the MUMTUS recipe up until I reached the stitch count for starting the lace pattern.  As you can see I'm at about 3 inches and that is after approx 3.5 hours of knitting time, as I've remarked in the past, I'm not the fastest of knitters but I enjoy it and finish things in my own time so I'm not too worried about that.  I am trying to keep track of time on this project, just out of interest to see how long it actually takes me, in knitting hours to knit a pair of socks.  I'm really enjoying this pattern, it is a four row repeat with rows 2 and 4 being identical.  I find this spurs me on to knit a little bit more.  Rather than just stopping knitting, I tend to finish a four row repeat before stopping, so instead of "just one more row" it's "just one more repeat".

I think next up on the radar is Medici by Woolly Wormhead.  Patrick's sister Coral has knitted it for herself in Manos Del Uruguay Silk Blend but only used 41g of a 100g skein.  She has very generously given me the rest of the skein for me to knit it for myself.  We'll have to make sure we don't both go out in them together though!