Finished my first pair of socks!

 

I finally finished my first pair of socks! I thought I would start with a pattern aimed at beginners, so these were knit with size 7 double points from cuff to toe with worsted weight yarn. These took me months to make as I ran screaming from the first one after I turned the heal. It was painful and not very pretty. And honestly - the pattern was not written for a beginner learning on there own. It was written to hand out to a beginner as a class was being taught. (I have and will continue to complain bitterly about paying $7.00 for this pattern!)

I feel like these are "Bed Socks" vs wearing out socks. They are loose and just feel like more of a slipper than a sock. I think if I wear them at night and in the mornings when the wood floors feel cold to my toes I will get a lot more use out of them.

I am happy to have gone through the process, and by knitting these in worsted I didn't worry about mistakes as much. I did much frogging and some starting over while I tried to figure out the pattern and how to pick up stitches, etc... I will definitely make more socks!

My Ravelry notes and more pictures of my socks can be found on my Ravelry page HERE.

Getting my groove back

Trying to get my Blogging mojo back!

It's finally Spring here and that means we are all racing outdoors to get our gardens in shape quickly. We have a very short season here in Minnesota - so we really have to get our plants in as quickly as we can so they can have some grow time. I have decided not to grow veggies this year - and instead we are turning into more fruit growing. This is largely because we have a good farmer's market locally where I can get large quantities of wonderful veggies inexpensively.

We have a lot of projects to do here over the summer - and I find myself already looking at the calendar and frowning about how we are going to fit all the projects in we want to fit in and OH yeah - enjoy the summer too!

Part of my summer wish list is to clean up my WIP piles with my knitting. I have a LOT of projects that are half baked, so I really want to get those finished or frogged. I have been kind of obsessing over socks a lot lately - I think because I find myself buying more and more sock yarn and frankly - I have ENOUGH hats and scarves. You can ALWAYS use more socks. And the one's my mom makes me every year for my birthday I just love and they are so warm. It's like wearing a hug on your feet. So I would love to start making socks.

So about two months ago I purchased 9728 Beginner Socks (Cuff Down) sock pattern by Diane Soucy on Patternfish. (The pattern is on Ravelry but it redirects you to Patternfish for the pattern.) I thought for a first time out - starting on a worsted weight yarn would be less intimidating, so even though the pattern was $7.00 (ouch!) I went ahead thinking I would make a fleet of socks with this pattern and it would pay for itself with all the use I got out of it.

Sadly this is not the case. The pattern is two pages long and there really is not detailed instruction. To me a beginner pattern should really spell out the process and direct you. I found myself flailing about a lot and feeling frustrated. So after I made it through my first heal turning, I put it back in it's project bag and there it sat for two months. 

Yesterday I picked the bag back up and finished Sock #1.

I ♥love♥ the yarn (Classic Elite Yarns Liberty Wool - color 7869) but the pattern itself is just lacking. I know this is my first sock - and I wanted to make a classic sock - with heal flap construction - cuff down.... so I could really work my way through my first pair of socks in a classic fashion. But I am really dreading that second sock. It's the heal construction. I don't like my execution of it and I don't like the actual pattern of it.

 This is where I feel my execution failed - the stitches I picked up are a little too much like lace work. I am not thrilled with that - but find it livable. It's my first sock after all - there IS a learning curve.

It's a little hard to see in the photo - but there is a ridge line under my heal. To me that means I will get blisters or at least be uncomfortable if I ever try and wear these socks out in shoes. Bummer!

So I will dutifully cast on for sock number 2, but boy am I not excited about it! I am going to pay very close attention to the heal construction this time - and try to understand it better. I am thinking ahead to "NEXT" and I think two at a time toe up construction - perhaps with an afterthought heal?!?! Sound pretty good!