Necessity Is The Mother of Invention

I participated in Sock Wars last year. It was a lot of fun. I really liked the socks I sent, not so much the socks I received. I had almost enough yarn left over from the two skeins I used for another pair of socks. What I really wanted was burgundy on the ribbed portion, black on the stockinette portion, heel, and cuff. I did not have that much burgundy. So, I did both legs up until the heel. Yippee, enough burgundy for both and enough for a small pattern of decreasing down into the foot. Go me. Next problem: There is only enough black to completely finish one sock. To the point where I didn't actually kitchener the last two stitches because I did not have enough yarn left. So, more black yarn is in the Great Yarn Order.

I did finish a pair of socks this week! See:


What? To be a pair of socks they have to be the same color? Or at least the same pattern? Okay, you got me there. The first sock is the Sock of Doom pattern that I was talking about in the first paragraph. I did not float the strands for the burgundy stripes loose enough, so it has a bit of a pucker where the burgundy meets the black. Not terrible. It just needs to stretch too much to get on my foot!

Although black yarn never looks quite right on film, here's a decent picture of the second sock:


It's the Hourglass Eyelet pattern from MagKnits. I used one skein of Digit fingering weight yarn from Nancy's Knit Knacks. In fact, I didn't even do the last decrease row of the toe decreases so as to keep it to one skein. I also made a pair of Baudelaires using this yarn. I hate normal work socks, so the goal was to make a week's worth of work socks. I had two pairs, Hedera using KnitPicks Essentials in black, and the Baudelairs. Those got accidentally thrown into the wash a couple of weeks ago, so now my 8 year old sister is getting a pair of socks for her birthday. Which isn't too bad, as I liked the fit and feel of the socks, I just didn't like how they looked in black.

About five minutes after I took this picture (which was about ten minutes after I finished the Hourglass Eyelet sock) I found a nail that sticks up from the entryway into the kitchen. Or rather, the Hourglass Eyelet sock found it, by snagging and ripping. I fixed it best I could, but it's quite annoying that I couldn't even wear the socks for real before causing damage.

One major plus for the last couple inches of the Hourglass Eyelet pattern was that I learned a new technique for SSK. Slip the first stitch knitwise, the second purlwise, and the SSK sits nice and flat, just about as nice as the K2tog. That is the one stitch that's been really bothering me whenever I use it, and now it's all kinds of nice. Yippee! I actually learned this one from one of the special notices from Mystery Stole 3. I love the online knitting community, I get to learn something new every day!