How I pick a sock project:

It is summer and has gotten extremely hot. I have yellow yarn and want to make something for the July SKA challenge. I don’t really care for the color yellow. Lots of things look a lot better in yellow than I do, and I leave them to it. Things like flowers and butter and bananas …

Banana socks! I can make banana socks!

There is something about having small food items represented on socks that makes me act silly. In case additional evidence of this is needed, I refer you to my Pun’kin socks. I still coo over them.

Pattern: Wendy Johnson’s Nanner Socks. I am thrilled that this pattern is now available to everyone. The document is written in the same style as most of her other socks, though not the most professionally finished; I have made several of her patterns before and so am familiar with them. It is, however, extremely easy to memorize and produces cute little bananas.

It also seems to be biasing badly. As I am using a plied yarn, I think this is the fault of the pattern, but it’s the first time I’ve had it happen.

Yarn: Regia 4 ply in yellow. Bright, solid, shameless yellow.

Execution: I started by casting on 30 stitches with Judy’s magic cast-on and increasing to 66 as directed in the pattern. I finished with one plain kit row before starting the lace. The heel gussets started in row 69 of the foot; I’ve found that to work well in previous patterns of Wendy’s that I’ve made. I used German short rows instead of wrap-and-turn for the heel, but otherwise used those instructions as written. I did pick up two extra stitches at the corners of the heel flap to close up the inevitable holes, and decreased them away (k2tog at beginning of second needle, ssk at the end) on the following rows. Patterning on the back of the leg starts on row 97 of patterning on top of the foot. I then reset my row counter to zero. In row 55, I added two additional purl stitches to add a bit more circumference to the sock. Leg finished after five repeats of pattern. Sock was topped with 1x1 ribbing, starting each side with a purl (so the side seams consisted of two adjacent purls), and fourteen rows. The cast-off was done with Jenny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off.