3/12/09: The socks made their debut today and they are FANTASTIC! These are the best fitting socks I have ever made. They didn’t move around in my shoe and the heel stayed right where it should.

I have a few more colorways of ShibuiKnits so I have the potential to nearly clone these socks.

:: rubs hands together ::

Excellent.

2/23/09: The most accurate color is in the 14th and 15th pictures from the top.

These socks fit great and are very comfy. I would like to have the pattern part of the sock a tad longer, so I should have reduced the amount of ribbing and done another pattern repeat. I had 10 grams leftover, so I could have squeaked out some more ribbing, too.

2/22/09: I finished one sock while watching Rebecca (GREAT movie!). I knit 2” of ribbing before the row of KFB and the bind off (in pattern).

Tonight I finished the second sock while watching The Amazing Race, the last 30 minutes of the Oscars and the first 2.25 hours of Lincoln.

I have 10g of yarn leftover.

Final specs for these socks are:

• CO 6
• Increase to 74
• After toe, do a modified Yarn Over Cable pattern. (Adding P1 to each side of the pattern and doing the pattern per needle, not cumulative.)
• Knit 7.5” before heel flap
• Do heel flap on 36 stitches and knit a 2.25” flap
• Turn the heel on 10 and 9 stitches
• Decrease down to 74 after the gusset
• Do 10 pattern repeats on the leg
• Knit 2” of ribbing (following the K3,P2 pattern established on the pattern repeats)
• KFB and then BO in pattern

This is the first time I’ve knit with ShibuiKnits and it’s wonderful! The colors are gorgeous, the yarn is soft and there were no knots in either skein. The yarn also isn’t splitty.

The photoshoot will be in the morning!

2/21/09: I made great progress on one sock’s leg while watching Gone With The Wind. I’ve done nine repeats of the pattern on this leg and the yarn is getting a bit low. I’m going to catch up the other leg and then figure out if I have enough yarn to do ten repeats or if I’m going to start the ribbing now.

I finished the pattern repeats on each leg while watching Imitation of Life (holy weepfest, batman!). I did ten pattern repeats on each leg.

I knit about half of the ribbing on one sock while watching The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (very cute!). I’m following the knit/purl pattern from rows 3 and 4 of the pattern for the ribbing.

2/20/09: I finished the second gusset while watching Woman Of The Year and got a good start on that sock’s leg while watching Adam’s Rib (a fun and funny movie!).

I got a good start on the second sock leg while watching Pat and Mike.

2/19/09: I turned both heels and started the first gusset this afternoon while watching A Free Soul. While the movie itself was good, but not anything special, it starred Norma Shearer, Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable and Leslie Howard. That alone made it worth watching. It was also a pre-code movie, so it was quite racy (for the standards of that time).

I finished the first gusset while watching Madame X (which contained the worst/best overacting I’ve ever seen), Survivor and Grey’s Anatomy.

I got a good start on the second gusset while watching Air Emergency: Deadly Delay, Inside: Devil’s Playground and the Rachel Maddow Show.

It was a great day of knitting!

2/17/09: I knit the first heel flap this afternoon while watching The Jazz Singer. Wow. While I appreciate the historical significance of this movie (the first one ever to feature talking), the movie really wasn’t very good. I’m happy I saw it, but doubt I’ll watch it again.

This evening I knit the second heel flap while watching SVU and The Tonight Show.

Each heel flap is on 36 stitches and is 2.25” long.

2/15/09: I finished both feet today while watching Lincoln: The Untold Stories (very interesting…Mary Todd was even crazier than I’d heard and that’s saying something), the season premiere of The Amazing Race (go Team Colorado!), Desperate Housewives (eh, still not that good), a fascinating and heartbreaking episode of 20/20, an episode of Knit and Crochet Today (I’d never seen this show before and likely won’t watch again; it wasn’t very good and the host was just awful) and an episode of Knitty Gritty (a much better knitting show both in quality, information and host).

I made each foot 7.5” (measured from the tip of the toe).

2/13/09: I knit a bit more on one sock while watching What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (deliciously evil movie!).

2/12/09: I made great progress tonight while watching the season premiere of Survivor: Tocantins, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice and Jeopardy.

2/11/09: I made good progress on one sock tonight while watching Lost (last week’s enhanced show) and American Experience: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (excellent show!).

I’m remembering why I loved this pattern the first time around: it’s easy to memorize, fun to do and looks much harder than it is.

2/10/09: The color on the 2/10 picture is crappy. The 2/8 and 2/9 pictures show the yarn color very accurately.

I knit more of the second sock tonight while watching The Rachel Maddow Show, Jeopardy, and Dateline NBC.

2/9/09: I knit the first 1” of the pattern on the second sock while watching Mildred Pierce (fantastic movie!).

2/8/09: I knit the first 1.5” of the pattern on one sock tongiht while watching 60 Minutes, Desperate Housewives and Shadow of a Doubt (I love Joseph Cotton!).

Since the Yarn Over Cable pattern is a 5 stitch pattern, I had to alter it. Each of my needles has 37 stitches (74 total in a round) so I added a P1 at the beginning and end of each needle. I’m also doing pattern repeats per needle, not cumulative.

2/7/09: I cast on and knit the toes of both socks tonight while watching Casablanca, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset (three of my favorites!).

I cast on 6 stitches and increased to 74 on both socks.

I’m leaning towards doing a yarn over cable pattern on these socks. All the patterns I’ve found are 5 stitch patterns and that’s not going to work for these socks, so I may try to modify one of those patterns to work with these socks. If that fails, I’ll probably fall back on 4x2 ribbing.