Here comes the long anticipated knitting post. Since Fall has officially started, here are the finished summer sock projects to show you at long last. It was a busy summer (actually I’m not sure where it went), and I really don’t have much knitting to show for it. But here’s the tally: I knit three pairs of socks. They are show below being modeled on my etching press, mostly just because the back room where the press is has the most daylight in the afternoon, and the colors came out pretty accurately on these images.
The first pair was for Jeremy, though because of the warm weather, he hasn’t had the opportunity to wear them yet. They are made with Trekking #102, my first randomly variegated Trekking, in lovely shades of gray. The pattern is the Gentleman’s Fancy Socks from Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks, knit on #0 needles.
The second pair is for my aunt, who is so busy that I’m betting she doesn’t read this blog, and can therefore show you this photo. They are the Estonian Socks from Nancy Bush’s Folk Socks (another great sock-knitting book—Nancy Bush is the best), knit with natural white Lang Jawoll for the main color, and Trekking #67 for the Fair Isle cuff. The Trekking was absolutely perfect for this: colorwork is not my favorite type of knitting, and the color changes in the Trekking emulated a more complicated Fair isle color pattern with less work for me. Excellent! I was really pleased with how these came out, despite how tiny they look in the photo, they really should fit my aunt, who has the same size tiny feet as me–see?
I used #1 needles, cut the Fair Isle pattern down from 3 repeats to 2, and made the socks a bit shorter to make up for that smaller circumference.
The third pair of socks is for my Grandma Ford. These are Jaywalkers done in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in the Vera colorway on #1 needles. Because of some of the issues with tightness, and the tendency of grandmas to have somewhat swollen ankles, I decided to start out with the larger size (84 sts) and decrease back down to 76 after several inches for a bit of calf shaping. I also ended up having to do a really extensive gusset to get the foot circumference down to the right size. If anything, these socks might be a bit loose, but Grandma should not have trouble getting them over her heels. I hope. I have enough yarn left over from this pair to make myself another short pair of socks, or maybe some fingerless mittens. Hmmm….