Pink striped socks for my 8 year old. I used Judy’s Magic Cast-on instead of the suggested Eastern method.

Stitch count: 44

-Stripes were unexpectedly matching up PERFECTLY! Then I got a good ways up the foot and there was a knot in one skein of yarn and an entire color or two missing! GRRRRR! Decided to splice other skein so that socks would mostly match. If they had not matched at the beginning, I would not have cared, but partly matching and partly not was more than I could bear.

-Heel in pattern did not work for me AT ALL! It left horrible holes. So, I used the afterthought heel in Kelley Petkun’s Two At Once Toe-up Socks. However, I had to modify and do the decreases on every 4th round.

-Going up a needle size to provide some shaping to accommodate her calves.

-Plenty of yarn to make knee socks…so I did! Went down a needle size or two for the last few rows so that she would not have saggy socks.

-Learned that k1 p1 makes a wider fabric than k2 p2, so there is no cuff at the top…just k2 p2 all the way up.

-Bound off using Jeny’s surprisingly stretchy bind-off

-Bethany is thrilled with her new socks and already has a coordinating outfit picked out to wear with them this autumn. :-D