These socks are a belated Christmas gift for my good friend, Lawrence. At the end of January, Al started a new job so we moved from Northern Virginia to central Alabama. Needless to say, the move put a big crimp in my knitting time. We are slowly getting back to normal and now I finally have some time to knit and spin.
The Manly Aran sock pattern is in Wendy Johnson's Toe-Up Socks for Every Body and the yarn is Knit Picks Risata in the Wood Sage colorway which is the closest I could get to Lawrence's favorite color of jade. I like the yarn as it is a wool/cotton/elastic blend which should keep its shape and not be too warm. Lawrence received Turkish wool slippers for Christmas and hopefully, he can wear these socks with his new slippers.
Wendy's patterns are a lot of fun to knit and she cleverly designs them so they look more difficult than they are. For instance, every other row of this design is just knitting the knits and purling the purls. She also gives a nice range of sizes which I find helpful. I started with size 0 Addi Turbo needles for the toes and neglected to realize that I needed them for the sole and went to the 2.5 mm Addi Lace needles for the entire sock. I eventually discovered my mistake (as the socks were larger than I expected) and got back on track. I also knitted both of these socks at the same time as I have been disappointed when my socks would turn out differently knitting them one at a time. I found making a neat bound off edge challenging, too, and that took a few attempts, but well worth the effort.
Thank you for your patience, Lawrence, you will receive your socks this week!
Oooooh! I can't wait! They look gorgeous. So nice to see you back online and hopefully settling in and getting back to KNITTING!
Posted by: Lawrence | February 25, 2013 at 08:54 AM
Lovely socks. I love Wendy's patterns too and I use her generic toe up pattern for my 1st pair of socks.
Posted by: Ann | February 26, 2013 at 05:25 AM
Beautiful socks! Lawrence is very lucky.
I hope the move went well and all is well in your new home. Glad that you can get back to knitting and spinning. Can't wait to see more!
Posted by: textillian | February 26, 2013 at 08:29 PM
They are soft and lovely, and of course, expertly made :)
I love them!
Posted by: Lawrence | February 28, 2013 at 01:36 PM