Old FO: My First Socks

Also known as The Post That PhotoBucket Made. Two months ago, I signed onto my blog and noticed that all of my photo grids (on the My Handmade Wardrobe page, etc.) had been replaced by generated pictures saying I hadn't payed for 3rd party hosting. I've used PhotoBucket since the days of Myspace, so when I needed a free place to host my pictures for this blog I just continued to use them. Apparently after being free since their inception, PhotoBucket decided they wanted to charge $400!!! if you want to show your photos anywhere other than their site. Yeah. I'm guessing they hope people will just pay that exorbitant amount to avoid the hassle, but seriously $400? Even Flickr is only $25 a year. Come on, folks! Being the cheap skate I am, I redid every photo (we're talking sizing and everything) and then replaced them in the html of my blog. This was a ton of work, but I would rather do more than that then pay PhotoBucket after pulling a stunt like that. I'm now hosted on Google Photos completely free - I highly recommend them if you have the same problem! Anyway, in the process of redoing all the photos and html work I noticed that I never posted about my first ever pair of socks! I had never even taken official photos of them, which is unheard of for me. So thank you, PhotoBucket, for being jerks and bringing to my attention this oversight :) Anyway, sorry for the rant. You're here for the socks!

These are the Lace Knee Socks from Craftsy's Knit Sock Workshop class. This class was purchased back when it was the only class on socks available (which is very much not the case now), and I just really got it in my head that I wanted to make socks when I first began knitting 5 years ago. Being so new to knitting and not knowing anything about socks or difficulty in patterns, I didn't realize how hard this would be. I thought that since I had a video class that I would be able to make them. I started this pattern only to barely finish the toe before I realized this was WAY to advanced for my skills at that time. Fast forward to December of 2014 when I had new yarn and wanted to make this pattern, so I cast on.

The pattern starts out with a Bosnian Toe cast on. I remember this was very difficult for me to knit without getting pronounced holes at the toe, but after many tries I was finally happy enough to move on. The toe has a neat swirl that I really like. Being my first ever sock pattern I had no idea at the time that this wasn't how all socks were made, but now I am able to appreciate it even more having a few more pairs under my belt.

From there you go into a lovely feather and fan pattern on the top of the foot. This feather and fan is what drew me back to the pattern. The pattern was easy to memorize but not boring (always a nice combination).

Next you get into the leg - now I knew I wouldn't be able to make these to the knee when I began due to only having 462 yards of yarn. My yarn is Knit Picks Stroll in the Blue Topaz colorway which I snagged in a clearance sale so I couldn't get any more at the time. I just wanted to knit until I ran out of yarn. The original pattern has a lovely lattice section below the cuff, but I cut that out entirely to save on yarn and it worked perfectly.

This is how much yarn I had left in the end. Wow! I'm still pretty impressed by this. As you can see I had to tink back a row to finish the bind off (thus all the kinks in the yarn), but it got there in the end and I had zero waste - always a nice feeling :)

Being that these are designed as knee socks, there is some shaping to the lace pattern at the back of the calf. If I remember correctly the added section should be longer, but I only had so much yarn so I stopped as you see.

And being socks they have totally smooth bottoms to be comfy underfoot. You can see them pilling already since I've worn them a bit in the colder months. They make nice bed socks :)

So how did things go on this first pair of socks? Well, sadly they are too big and also too small (womp womp). Since my feet are huge and I'm used to always having the larger sizes in anything having to do with me feet, I just cast on the largest size without checking the measurements. The result is that the socks are sloppy on my feet to where I could never wear them with shoes. This changes in the ankle increases where it becomes too tight for my rather muscular calves. This is normal too for me - I can never get knee high boots because they are always too tight, so I should've known, but I didn't think to check having never made socks before.

I'm also pretty proud of my heel and toe on these. Considering I'd never knitted either before, and considering the toe was kind of tricky, I'm thrilled they look this nice. I knitted a good deal of one sock while I was on a cruise in the Bahamas with my sister, so I think of that every time I see these socks.

So now I have officially blogged about my first ever pair of socks :) In spite of their issues these were fun to make and I do still wear them to sleep in when it's cold (which it seems it never will be again if last "winter" is any indication). I learned a lot from these socks and I was able to go on to knit 3 more pairs of socks later. If you're an experienced knitter and want to try socks, I would recommend Knit Sock Workshop as well. You really do learn the breakdown of a sock and the patterns with the class are lovely. I wouldn't recommend the class to a newbie knitter though, to be honest. That's probably why Craftsy has so many classes now devoted to new sock knitters :)

Summary:
Yarn: 2 skeins Knit Picks Stroll in Blue Topaz - $5.50
Pattern: Lace Knee Socks by Donna Druchunas in Knit Sock Workshop Craftsy Class
Time: 2 months