Blog, socks, finally!

Here we go! We've got a blog. And our first entry... my pair of socks that I FINALLY finished. This was quite the ordeal. And as much as I've loved making these socks, I'm definitely ready to be finished. It really shouldn't have taken me this long to finish the socks, but I ran out of yarn. Once I finally made it out to the store to buy more yarn, they were all out of the yarn I had used! So I just bought some boring red yarn to finish off the second toe with. Then I went into my yarn bag for some reason or another and what did I find? Just enough yarn to finish off my socks! Wonderful. I even have a little extra. Hopefully enough to make another pom pom for my sister's hat of the same yarn.

Anyway, here are pictures of my socks. Above are the finished products. A little imperfect, but I'm satisfied. I used the "Rock 'n' Ribbed" pattern from Elizabeth's Knit Socks! book by Betsy Lee McCarthy. They are a little loose. How would I fix that? Just decrease the amount of stitches? Or use stretchier yarn or something, probably.

I finished up the toes differently. On the first one (top) I followed the pattern, just decreasing (but I screwed up and cut out the plain rows between the decreased rows because I wanted to try that. It was too short, though.) and then ending with kitchener's stick at the end of the toe.

On the second toe, I used a different method that I found here (for free!). In this one, the seam is on the topside of the toe, like a regular sock you'd buy, which I found appealing. I just did what the pattern said exactly despite my slightly different number of stitches. I think I ended up with an extra stitch or two somehow when I was ready to bind off, but it worked out fine. I used kitchener's stitch to close the toe instead of the 3-needle bind-off that they used. But I screwed up my kitchener's stitch in the middle, so it's a little bumpy.

This third picture is the side of the second toe. It doesn't really show very well what I was trying to show - the yarn over's, which are the method that the linked pattern uses for the short row toe. Mine turned out a little imperfect and with some holes, but overall, I like this toe a lot better. It looks much smoother than the decreases, and I LOVE heel turning, so if I can turn a sock TWICE, it's just even more fun.

That's all for the knit blog now. This is so fun.

XOXO,
Teresa