Take Your Socks to Lunch

Since I can't ever seem to get good photos of my knitting this time of year, I wore the Cordovan Socks that I finished last night to work today. And despite the disruption to my usual morning routine (see previous post), I remembered to bring my camera to take a few shots while I ate my lunch.

I don't always manage to, but I think that this time I really nailed finding a yarn to compliment a pattern. I love how the little passed-over stitches look like little leather laces.

I started this pair of socks while attending the Sock Summit this summer. Janelle and I were riding the train to the convention center, and she was doing the most interesting stitch pattern (Charade) with a beautiful green yarn. I really liked the pattern -- it was easy -- and I realized it would look much better that whatever I was then attempting. Somewhere along the way I screwed up and had to rip back many inches of work. I remember doing this during the Elizabeth Zimmerman 99th birthday celebration. I'm sure she would have understood. I'm not sure why these languished for so long. I usually like to get socks done quickly. But no matter -- they turned out fine.

I used a Charlene Schurch book for the dimensions of the heel, but other than that, I just did a toe-up (magic cast on) sock with the gusset running parallel rather than perpendicular to the bottom of my foot. I ended with 1x1 ribbing and used these instructions for a stretchy Kitchener bind-off. It's a lot of Kitchenering, but it makes a smoother edge then Ms. Zimmerman's sewn bindoff, and it's really quite stretchy.

And you gotta love that Malabrigo sock yarn.