قرطبه

Translated, or rather, transliterated, that's "Qurţuba," the Arabic name of the city in Spain founded by the Romans and today known as Córdoba. The city became known for the production of horse leather, and in English, the word "cordovan" refers to this leather and/or its rich burgundy/brownish color. Thus ends today's history and linguistics lesson.

I started these Cordovan Socks, made from Malabrigo Sock in the Cordovan colorway at the Sock Summit. I'd started some with this yarn before I left Texas a week or so before, but I'd picked a too-busy pattern for this dark yarn and it just wasn't reading. While taking The Max back and forth to the Summit, Janelle was working on a very cool pattern, and I just decided to copy her. She was knitting socks in a pattern called Charade by Sandra Park (a free Ravelry pattern). I'm not using the sock pattern, but I am using the stitch pattern. Otherwise, I'm basically using the same toe-up construction I used on the 14505 socks, upping my usual 72 stitches to 76 to make thing come out evenly. And I'm using Charlene Schurch's More Sensational Knitted Socks as a guide through the heel turn.

While knitting these, the late Ricardo Montalban's voice keeps going through my head, describing the "soft Corinthian leather" of his Chrysler Cordoba. Corinth, Cordoba -- hey, it's all Mediterranean. My college roommate had one of these babies. That lead sled was a smooth ride...

One of things we discussed in Stephen Houghton's Making Socks Manly class, was how the male foot is differently anatomically than the female foot. Some of the proportions around the ankles are different, meaning that just adding stitches or going up a needle size may not be enough. Heel flaps might need to be longer, insteps might need to be narrower and any shaping needs to take place further up the leg. I'm trying to be mindful of this as I kind of wing this pattern, but it's so easy to fall back on what I've done before.

I got some cool patterns at the Sock Summit. And one is not even a sock. More about them later.