Summer of Socks 2007

T minus 6 hours 43 minutes and counting until the official start of the Summer of Socks KAL/Crochet-along! :-)

No, I still have not finished the socks I have OTN, as I had planned to do before starting, but I have made some progress. The toe-up Sockamania River Valley sock is going extremely well though. I love the lace pattern -- very simple to memorize and knits up very quickly. Have I mentioned that I love toe-up construction?! It is great to try on the socks to see that they fit and how far I have left to knit before turning the heel. In fact, I have reached just that point of the sock, I believe. Then it's time to learn a new technique -- Short Row heels. I did short rows one other time when I was knitting miniature Christmas Stockings last fall (during pre-blog times... not sure I even have pictures). The stockings themselves did not come out very well given that I had no clue how to pick up and knit stitches and just wasn't getting the hang of it. But the short row portion did come out well, as I recall. So I suppose it would not be a completely new technique, but it will be the first time knitting them into a sock to wear. (On a side note, I will have to find that pattern for the stockings and add them to my To Knit List for Christmas Gifts) Anyway, back to the sock -- it is much further along than the picture posted below. Unfortunately I do not have a recent pic, so I suppose you'll have to take my word for it. Tomorrow I will try to post a picture of that sock along with my SOS sock!

Speaking of the SOS sock, I wound the yarn this evening. It is Seacoast Handpainted Panda yarn in Melonballs colorway. The yarn is 60% Merino, 30% Bamboo, and 10% Nylon and feels very soft -- can't wait to start using it tomorrow. The pattern came with the yarn in the yarn4socks.com June Sock Club. It has mock cabling and lace, so should be very interesting to knit. Here's what my yarn looks like -- ready and raring to go!