Actual Socks

First of all, Z and John and I would like to say thank you so much for all the birthday wishes.  They are much appreciated and made us all smile.  Ms. Z had a lovely first birthday, filled with family and friends and some good chocolate cake.  Her favorite gifts so far are the "Bee Bop Band" -- a collection of music making toys in a drum -- and a card from her grandparents that plays the Chicken Dance.  The Chicken Dance is low down on my list of favorite tunes (John and I informed our wedding band a long time ago that they would not get paid if we heard the song at our reception), but it's totally worth it to watch her bounce to it.  She spent her whole party walking around like a pro.  Crawling is definitely out, now.  Walking is definitely where it's at.  John and I are both losing weight chasing her around.


Speaking of walking and chasing, I'll have a new pair of socks to walk around in once it cools off enough for it to be wool sock season.  These sock are of my own design and are knit from sKNITches Syncopation Sock Yarn in "Brick Layer" that I purchased from the Loopy Ewe some time ago.  The socks were knit toe up with a short-row heel on 2.5 mm Harmony DP needles (US size 1).  I found the yardage to be extremely generous and had plenty left over, even with longer than my usual leg area. 

I chose the "Vine Lace Zig Zag" pattern from Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns because I wanted something that would create some motion in the stripes but wouldn't be too hard to memorize or work without much effort.  In fact, if you're looking for a nice pattern for striping, or even non-striping sock yarn, I highly recommend this one.  It's easy to memorize and the results are very satisfying.

I was very pleased with the resulting socks.  Not just because they matched, but because they matched so well.  I think this speaks volumes to the care that is put into hand-dying sKNITches yarn.  The color intervals were regular, the areas where the colors met were not muddy and throughout the skein the intervals remained regular enough that I was able to get beautiful results. 

Since there was a good deal of yarn left over, I have been thinking that I might use it for Z's first pair of fall socks.  But I'm going to wait a while to start on that project. She's growing so fast, right now and I want them to last most of the winter.