Yesterday as I was walking to work I realized I am the luckiest woman alive. This weekend was great. I got to hang out with people, cook, read books and knit. All of the things I like to do best spread over two days without any of the annoying bits. No petty arguments, no recipe failures, none of that general miasma that you sometimes get when you just don't know what you want to do, but you know you aren't doing it now (I can't be the only one who feels that way sometimes). Better yet, I got fun mail on both Friday and Saturday.
Saturday night I started the socks for the exchange. I'm past the heel now of sock one, and am enjoying the process. I'm working toe up, which is not my common sock method (if I don't want to think at all it is always top down). It was my first time working the Judy's magic cast on, and it was easier than I was expecting. This is also my first time working with Vesper yarn, which I've seen online but never had picked any up. I love the vibrant colors and better yet, I forgot how simple and endlessly entertaining self striping yarn can be.
Now, I'm working the Gusset Heel Basic socks from Socks from the Toe Up, and I really should have checked for Errata. Everything about the gusset (well, not quite everything) I did was wrong. I think that is OK, because if I followed Wendy's instructions I would have had a much bigger heel and my sock would have been over 10 inches long. Instead of the instructions or the Errata'd instructions, I worked the gusset to the 30 stitches mentioned and then the center purl of the turned heel was 12 stitches (22 free stitches on each side of the heel). I think I will remember this for when I get that far, but there is no use taking chances. Even with undoing a huge chunk of heel yesterday on my way home I still managed to make a heel that looks correct.
The socks I'm making are a little bit bigger than I'm used to (actually, I had the same problem when I was making socks for my mother in law, whose feet were smaller in length but bigger around the instep and the ankle). I've never been completely comfortable with measuring for socks, but my feet are narrow (9 inches over the ankle bone) and I wear my socks with a ton of negative ease. I remember my first trekking socks, which were also the first socks I made that felt like they actually fit. They were like midget socks and I wondered if they would actually go over my ankle! So, here is to hoping that my gauge and my math-ing have resulted in socks that are the correct size! Not too big and not so much negative ease that they feel uncomfortably tight!
