November 8, 2012 - Been debating which project to take with me on the plane when I travel for Thanksgiving. My Haruni needs beads, so that was out. I’m almost done with Jezi’s cabled bag, but that requires sewing fabric for the lining. My Mouton Rose sweater is intarsia, which I’m still scared to work on (plus…ALL THE BOBBINS!), which left my My Sexy Valentines socks…and I just wasn’t feeling those at the moment. I considered casting on my second Snow White sweater, but just felt like socks are a better plane project since the yarn I have for that sweater is rather sheddy.

I had this Shibui Knits yarn in my stash, and have been looking for the right project for it. I’ve been considering a Clapotis with it, but when I saw these socks it just felt perfect.

So casting on the toes tonight. I’m leaving for a weekend trip tomorrow and am bringing this along with me.

I’m doing them 2-at-a-time on Magic Loop. I’m still deciding on a short-row heel or flap. Will poke around for heel options to make sure these go smoothly.

December 11, 2013 - FINISHED!

It normally wouldn’t take me a year to finish a pair of socks, but they became my go-to project for travelling, so I worked on them only on trips…and I think when I kept my roommate company during a visit to the Urgent Care. I also lost 4 months to working on my Blizzcon costume, so that time could have been spent knitting.

Overall, I liked the pattern. It was easy to memorize, which made it a perfect travel pattern. It worked well for a toe-up sock. But I have to say that after a while they got BORING to make. I think that’s why I made them my travel project: If I had only this project with me, it forced me to work on them. It was the perfect pattern for my yarn, though, and the pattern diffused any pooling, but was also not the kind of pattern that disappears in the variegation of the yarn.

I ended up doing a short-row heel. It just looked smoother, and I didn’t want the heel to distract from the pattern itself.

The yarn is all right. It’s not as soft as I would have liked, and the extreme differences in the dyelots scared me when I looked through other people’s projects. It’s nice and thick, just a little more rough than I thought it would be when worked up. Hopefully washing and blocking will help that.

I both love and hate doing 2-at-a-time anything. I need to finish my sleeves for my Maleficent sweater, and I’m dragging my heels on that. But if I didn’t do these socks 2-at-a-time I KNOW I wouldn’t get the same number of pattern repeats.

Speaking of, I probably could have done 1-2 more pattern repeats with the amount of yarn I have left over. I wish I had, but once I got several rows into the ribbing at the top, I wasn’t about to rip it back out. I have an order from Knit Picks that should be arriving today, and I vowed to have these done before it arrived!