My Current Socks

Here's a pair of socks I made and finished a little while ago, like last month at this time maybe. The ones with the purple and orange and green stripes. They're made out of Cascade "Fixation" yarn, which is stretchy. That was actually fun to work with except that I made them both at the same time using the Magic Loop technique, and I didn't tie off the yarn in between stripes. I carried it along the edge, so I had six dang strings dangling out of the needles at all times. That pretty stunk. But anyway, I also just did a short-row heel, instead of a heel-flap, and it's ok. It's not fantastic. I just wanted to make socks that are like regular socks: stretchy and with that diagonal line at the heel. So I did it.

Then the other picture is my most recent sock project. I just cast on for it last week, maybe thursday or Friday, but using the original yarn I bought when I took the Magic Loop socks class at the local yarn store. I had made a sock with the class, but it was terrible. The gauge was all floppy and loose and we hadn't made a ribbing around the top originally, so I went back and added one which would have been fine if there was a way to cast off and make it just as stretchy as a K1, P1 rib, which there's NOT, no matter what they say. I know because I scoured the inter-flipping-net to find that very cast-off and THOUGHT I'd come up with something but after I did it, as loosely as I could possibly cast off, the stinkin' thing STILL didn't fit over my heel, to try it on. So Up That!!! I went ahead and ripped the whole thing out and used the yarn to cast on for this pair of socks and the yarn's already split neatly in half! So yeah! And check that cool K6, P1 rib pattern I added all the way around. Can you see it in the picture? Anyway, I made some super-similar to this for my sister Laurel (see my first post) but with a K7, P1 rib and I wanted it just a little more frequent in this pair that I'm making for myself out of very similar yarn. It's super quick to make them at the same time, and as you can see, not very messy with just TWO yarns coming off the work. They really don't get tangled. I highly recommend this method.