Be-gyled Again

I'm feeling so much better about these socks. Because the first one is finished -- mostly.

I was in a funk about these all week. I decided that, to determine whether these would really fit, I should seam it up to the point I'd knit so far and try them on. Because I knew I'd need all the circumference I could get and didn't want a thick seam, I tried seaming along the middle of the selvage edge. Tricky, under the best circumstances -- darn near impossible on such tiny (and sometimes quite dark) stitches. So there was that. Then, I had to get the triangles and cross hatches to match up along the seam. So there was also that. And then I tried it on.

A bit snug! This morning, with the encouragement and support of my fellow knitters, I went ahead and did the side seams and decided that, while snug (about as snug as the patent stitch socks I made recently), they would still work -- especially after a little hard-core blocking. When doing the side seams, I didn't pay attention to making them end on the same row along the sole. I'd overshot the sole a bit thinking I could rip back, but because I had room, I ended up with one seam taking up more of the sole than the other. So I ripped that one back. I still may have been a few rows off, but I finally got it back in the round and finished off the toes this afternoon.

Ye of weak stomach might not want to look at the second photo in this post. Yes -- those are just some of the ends that must be woven in. Some have already been done and some are hidden on the other side of the sock. This could take some time.

I'm back in the swing of things with these, though, and hope that all I've learned on this sock will make the second one fly by. I do know that I need to count the sole rows ahead of time, and then I need to divide the gray better this time around. I also know exactly how long to cut the yarn for the bobbins for the color parts, too.

I've really had a mood swing on this project. I was down in the dumps about it just a few days ago, but now I believe diamonds are a boy's best friend.