17-01-2020

I read a LOT of sock patterns before settling on this one. Started out with Tin Can Knit’s Ryle Light but didn’t like the garter panel, and was going to re-start it when I found this pattern. It seems super simple and straightforward - that’s all I want for now.

22-01-2020

Well, this has been an adventure so far. Just past the heel flap and gusset on my first-ever sock, and here’s what I learned.

1. Don’t use sock yarn on your first pair of socks. Itsy bitsy tiny stitches are so hard to see, especially when you’re trying to pick them up along the heel flap and they keep rolling inward and you begin to think that maybe handmade socks are overrated after all and scarves are a lovely thing to knit.

2. Don’t use variegated sock yarn that has a long colour gradient on your first pair of socks. I was loving the gentle colour changes until I got back to the stitches held while I had been working on the heel flap and the bright yellow crashed abruptly into the deep purple. So much for gradients.

3. Don’t use variegated sock yarn that has a long colour gradient and two plies in different colours twisted together in your first pair of socks. Not only was I peering at itsy-bitsy stitches, but I kept accidentally picking up only one ply or being afraid I’d picked up only one ply.

4. What seems like a yawing mawp between the stitches you picked up along the heel flap and the stitches held while you had been working the heel flap will close up nicely. Don’t fret.

5. Read the pattern. Carefully. Again. I ended up decreasing on the wrong end of one needle for the gusset for a few rounds.

I can totally see why second sock syndrome is a thing - thank goodness there are all those rows of simple rounds in the foot to make you forget about the trauma of the heel flap.

29-01-2020

One sock done!!! I’m really quite excited - I finished an entire sock and it actually looks like a sock. Even more, it actually FITS! It’s a fugly sock, and there are a lot of curse words knitted into it for the various ways I meandered off target, but I made a sock!

This yarn is colourful and lovely, but I don’t think one could ever make matching socks out of one skein - all the way through one sock and the colour pattern hasn’t yet repeated.

Casting on in the battle against second-sock syndrome today - wish me luck!

07-02-2020

It took a while for me to figure out that this strange yarn only has ONE repeat, and it’s the inverse of the forward pattern. So the colours work one way from cuff to toe, and the other way from toe to cuff (and it’s off by a little bit because I didn’t understand the repeat or start the one at the exact mid-point of the skein.)

08-02-2020

Finished!

Made lots (LOTS!) of mistakes, like in the final toe decreases I realized I’ve been doing SSK wrong for my last at least two or three projects, and there were crazy gaps where I picked up the stitches, and I have some significant laddering issues with DPNs -- but I made a pair of socks!! And they may be fugly, but I will wear them with (rainbow) pride.

13-10-2021

Another interesting set of sock tips https://www.knitpicks.com/learning-center/sock-knitting-g...