WIP Wednesday: Sock Week Progress

 As a knitting podcast watcher, I stumbled on Knitty Natty's Youtube channel earlier this year. It's just a nice, comforting show with all kinds of knitting talk and I find it to be great to have on in the background while I work sometimes. When she announced her Sock Week Challenge, I knew I wanted to participate. The challenge is to see how many socks you can knit in 1 week - they have to be fingering weight yarn and adult sized, but they can be shorties or knee length if you want. If this had been any other week of the year, I would probably have tried for regular socks, but this week was when my boyfriend was finally coming to visit, so not only did I have limited knitting time while he was here, I was also frantically cleaning every night before he got here. So here is what I came up with:

I dug deep in my stash for this project. I decided to do shortie socks knowing I wouldn't have much knitting time, so this is the Jojo's Shortie Socks pattern by Goddess Crochet which is free on Ravelry). I went through my stash on Ravelry specifically looking for single skeins of sock yarn that I know wouldn't be enough for a full pair of socks on their own. I came up with this skein of Paton's Kroy Sock in the Fern Rose Jacquard colorway that I bought in November of 2012. I had learned to knit just a few months before and had no idea what was needed for socks, but this was on clearance at Hobby Lobby and I grabbed it. I then decided to pair it with another stash orphan - Wendy Family Choice 4 ply that I grabbed in a thrift store many years ago. This yarn is only 10% wool, so not the greatest choice for socks, but I figured it was fine for the cuff, heel, and toe. So the above photo was as far as I was able to get in one week. This included one false start as well:

On the original start date (July 9th), I had made this top of my first sock, but the color combo of where the pattern started was just so hideous that I pulled it back to the cuff and changes the top. I'm honestly not in love with this colorway in general, lol. I love jacquard printed yarns - they are so fun to watch the pattern emerge - but this one gives off a weird Christmas-y vibe to me. I am happier with the cuff area after pulling it back, but that meant that it took me longer to make what I did accomplish. I finished my first sock on Friday night and cast on the second at the beach on Saturday.

I messed up with this cast on as well and had to pull it out, lol. At least I had only done about 4 rows of knitting in 1x1 rib when it needed to be 2x2 rib, so it wasn't that big of a deal, but still. The beach is a distracting place to start a project, ya'll.

So the partially finished sock was made entirely on Sunday, which I'm pretty proud of considering I didn't have as much knitting time as I even typically would on a Sunday. My knitting evening had my fingers sore from my Karbonz dpns (if you know you know), so I don't know that I could have made much more than this even had I had the time. My goal for Sock Week was to at least finish one sock to submit for the prizes, which I did, so that's great. While I am not exactly in love with my socks, I'm glad to have them as a pair to try out shortie socks and see if I will get much use out of them. And I used up an 11 year old skein of yarn! That's a win as well. Now I just have to finish the foot and toe of this sock, which I know will not take me long to do.

Did you participate in Sock Week? I love little challenges like this that feel short and sweet and I look forward to joining in next year as well!