Year of Projects 4: 16th February update

A day late with an update this week, but I couldn't not stop by and share my sock progress! Last week I shared a photo of my red and white stripey socks, and I am pleased to report that I actually finished them later on that day.

Buoyed by my socky success, I immediately wound another skein of sock yarn and cast on another pair of socks. This time using a skein of Candy Skein yarn I bought back in January 2012. It's the sock club colourway from that month, Arctic Mint. If memory serves, this was one of the earliest sock club colours that Tami did.

I took the above picture yesterday morning, in preparation for writing a post then about how amazed I was that I'd knit a sock and a half in a week. However, the rugby kicked off before I managed to get the photos onto the computer, and by the time the game was over...

I knit a pair of socks in a week! I'm so pleased with myself. The pattern is Bandwagon Socks by Phreadde Davis, which is more of a recipe for the socks than a pattern per se, as most of the elements for the pattern come from other patterns. So I didn't feel so bad about making my own modifications.

First up, I have tried and failed on numerous occasions to get to grips with Judy's magic cast on, and therefore replaced the toe with my now standard short row toe. Second, I looked at the instructions in the pattern for the toe up gusseted heel, but didn't feel confident enough about them to try to follow them. So I stuck with what I know, and substituted a short row heel as well.

The rest then became second nature, as I know exactly how many rows I need to knit for the foot to fit me, when I've got fingering weight yarn, 2.5mm needles and have cast on for 64 stitches! The only other modification I made was to adjust where in the chart I started when I got to the second sock, as I wanted them to be matching. So I started the chart halfway through on foot 2, so that when I wore the socks the zig zag of the yarn overs would be mirror opposites.

I'm incredibly pleased with these socks, and the surprising realisation that it was actually quicker to knit patterned socks than it was to knit plain ones! I plan to wear them to Unravel on Saturday, if I make it.