September, where did you go?

Evan and I have been out of town, traveling, having super awesome friends visit, and so on for the entire month of September.  We’re exhausted.  I’ve been super snappish with my darling husband, especially when I was trying to frantically finish the sock shown below before heading out to the knitting group I have been trying to go to in order to have someone in the area other than my husband with whom to interact.

I started this sock for the second sock syndrome swap, where you knit one sock and mail the remaining yarn and pattern to a partner, who completes the second sock and then has a lovely pair of socks to wear.

I have really been wanted to try out the patterns in Anna Zilboorg’s book, “Socks for Sandals and Clogs,” and so I picked out the Sirius sock pattern and jumped right in.  I had never knit toe-up socks before, so it took me a couple of tries to get the sock started.  The sock is also constructed using a technique I’d never done before, where you knit the foot, then the heel, graft them together and then knit the leg.  The back of the leg also has a complex bobble pattern, so I had to check the pattern over and over again as I was knitting it.  I finally finished, cast off the sock and couldn’t get the darn thing to fit over my foot.  I ripped it out and tried again using the stretchy cast off method described here.  It was even worse.  Around this time, the cats, sensing my frustration with this process, grabbed the ball of yarn I was working with and chased it around the room.  I ripped the cast-off out again, taking about ten rows with it and ultimately used a variation of this technique, where I made a new stitch after every stitch.  It worked (thank goodness) and I now have a sock to send my pal.  I hope she is a better knitter than I am, however, as I am not sure I would wish the first attempt of this sock on anyone (I’m sure the second time through would be much easier).  If you are my sock pal and you are reading this, I’m very sorry.  The sock is very cute though.

The socks were knit with Bearfoot yarn by Mountain colors.  The colorway is winter sky.

I also finished the socks of doom for sock wars last weekend.  Less than twenty-four hours passed from the cast-on Friday night (coming home on Bart from a Toshi Reagan concert that I went to with a friend from work), to the kitchener of the second sock.  My fastest socks ever.  I “killed” my victim on Wednesday and now I am awaiting her unfinished socks.  I had entirely predicted my early demise in this contest, but so far I am still alive.

The socks were knit using Zara, a super soft, machine washable merino wool.  The color is number 1717.