12-23-2025

Boy, this first sock has been an adventure.

The colorway repeat is incredibly long. There are only three full repeats (plus a partial of a fourth) in the skein.
The Pattern starts out with alternating stripes of the dark gray with the light gray, then there’s a long span of ight gray and then it switches back to alternating thin strips of the dark and ight gray, then a large stripe of the dark gray befor transitioning to alternating thin strips of the dark gray with the light blue, a thick stripe of the light blue, then alternating thin strips of the light blue and dark gray, transitioning to a thick stripe of the dark gray. The heel hit right before the thick strip of the light blue. I tried a SR heel, but more than half of the heel was in the light blue, and I thought the transition back to the foot would look odd. I then tried a plain heel, worked in the moment, but there was still the issue of so much light blue in the heel, and the weird transition back to the foot, so I ripped back to the last decrease of the gusset after the PCO and worked the heel. This kept the colorway continuity on the top of the sock. I wasn’t sure what I would do for the heels. The toe finished with the thick stripe of light gray and the near-start of the second repeat of the colorway. I then wound off to the start of the third repeat, and considered how I might make the heels match each other with what remained of the 2nd repeat.

Decided that I could do the alternating thin stripes of light blue and dark gray for the heels, using the first set of stripes before the thick stripe for one heel and the second set of stripes (that occur after the thick stripe) for the second, working toward the thick stripe so that if the heels need some of that thick stripe at the end of the heel, it would be there.

Started a 4-3-2-1 toe, then decided to do a long round toe, so I ripped back. Got the round toe mostly done and then decided it would be too narrow for the recipient. Ripped it back again and did the 4-3-2-1 toe. The sock ended up 1/2’’ too long, so I ripped back the toe again to the start and then ripped back another 6 rounds to reduce the toot length and re-knit the toe for the final time.

Took way more thinking through than is typical, but with such an unusual colorway, it was an interesting challenge.

50%

12-29-2025

Arrgh. This sock is going in a time out until FiF.

The colorway was a challenge on the first sock. I did the heel three times, trying to figure out how to approach it to get a result I liked. I did the toe three times, and then had to rip it out after the graft was done, because the sock ended up 1/2’’ longer than I intended, so I did it a 4th time.

I thought the second sock would be smooth sailing, but I misinterpreted where I was in the colorway when I started the first one, so the second one is visibly off from the first. I will have to rip it out, but not until February, when I can stand to look at it again.

02-04-2026

2nd sock done through the heel and most of the foot. Almost to the toe. 95%