FO Catch-up

Anyone who has been following this blog for awhile knows that I am horrible about blogging my FOs. From time to time, I have to make a series of posts documenting them and proving that yes, I really did finish that and ages ago...I'm just too lazy to finish weaving in an end or two and then take a picture sometimes.

Yesterday, I made it my mission to finish weaving in the 5 ends preventing me from blogging 2 pairs of socks.

Meet 3 of 5. Why yes, I am still giving Borg-like designations to my socks this year. Heh.

I called these 4 Times Over, because I restarted the first sock 4 times before I realized that my perfectionism was going to kill me and the project. Self-striping does not seem to guarantee that the stripes will match up perfectly, no matter how hard you try.

These particular socks are toe-up and were cast on size 2.5 needles with 10 stitches per needle (knit with Yarntini self-striping nylon/merino sock), then increased every row to 20 stitches per needle. From there, I increased every other row until I had 32, making these 64 stitch socks for the foot and the ankle. For the heel, I knit in two false rows in another color and did an afterthought heel, which worked out pretty well for me, but I may try other types in the future. (I could not find the actual tutorial I learned from, but there are a ton of them out there. The one I linked was for top-down socks, but it's essentially the same for toe-up.) As I worked my way up the leg, I ended up with 96 stitches total and ended with 2 x 2 rib.

Overall, they're not bad. I'm not in love with them either, but what I do not like about them, I'll use for future socks and improve upon the design. And believe me, with my new-found love of self-stripey sock yarns, you will be seeing a lot of generic toe-up ones coming from me in the future.

Pattern: May 2010 SKA Mystery Sock by Cookie A (ravel it)

Needles: US size 1.5, two circulars

Yarn: Wollmeise Sockenwolle 80/20 Twin - Turkis

4 of 5.

These were a total blast to knit, and it's a shame they took me so long to finish. With moving and all the stress that happened early this summer, I lost my oomph to finish them with about 1/2 the second sock to go. Once I was moved in and started to settle, I picked these back up and finished in a couple of days.

These were knit with 2 leg repeats instead of 3. If I knit this pattern again in the future, I'd start off on a larger needle size, maybe 2, and squeeze in the third repeat. I'd decrease my needle size down the leg in order to get back to size 1.5, since those worked pretty well on the foot.

Other then that, I just followed the pattern for these. It was really easy to memorize the twisted stitch cable pattern and cruise on them.

And there we have it: 2 finished pairs of socks for this Monday morning. I need just one more to meet my goal of 5 for the year.

Now if I can just weave in the ends on those cardigans and get them blogged....