Socktober

Did you know it is Socktober already? Contests and whatnot have been popping up all over ravelry and the blog world. On the Stash and Burn group, people have been setting goals for using their abundance of sock yarn. My goals are hopefully attainable. I want to use up at least 2 pairs worth or about 800 yards. I've put aside some of the projects I was working on (a sweater for me, some shawls, some socks (oh, wait, maybe shouldn't have put those down)) and started on a pair of socks for my friend for Christmas. These aren't a surprise (she bought the wool and told me her shoe size) so I'll post pictures here.

I'm doing a garter stitch toe which is definitely interesting. I wasn't sure if my friend needed pointy toes or blunt toes so this garter stitch square will hopefully solve that problem. It was a really easy way of starting a toe-up sock. You cast on 1/4 of the total stitches (so, if the sock is 60 stitches, you cast on 15) using some sort of provisional cast on so you can easily pick up stitches. I used Judy's Magic Cast-on. Then you knit garter until you have the same number of garter ridges (15 garter ridges in this case) and you have a little square. You pick up the stitches along each side and *poof* you have 60 stitches on your needles.

The rest of this pattern is a Riverbed sockitecture from Cat Bordhi's book. The increases are all along the sole of the sock. You would think that wouldn't feel comfortable on your sock but they really are. I made one of these Riverbed socks for myself already and like the way it fits. I just hope my friend will like it as much.

Another project I'm working on with sock yarn is my OSUtrich Plume Shawl, my name for the Ostrich Plume Shawl because I'm working with OSU (scarlet and grey) colored sock yarn. This shawl is very repetitive so I've found myself not drawn to working on it. It is definitely a "knit while watching TV project) because the same pattern is repeated over and over. I'm probably halfway finished by this point but it isn't a compelling knit for me. This picture of it is from a while ago but it pretty much looks the same, like a blob of scarlet and grey lace.