October socks - Sockstravaganza

I used last weekend to finish up my October socks. I was waiting on Friday for some yarn to arrive for the Buttonwillow wrap, but it didn't. Which was a good thing, because then I decided to finish off this pair. I've had half a sock lying around for some time now, because between casting on, and actually finishing them, I did a couple of other projects.



These socks were the reason I bought the book "Brave New Knits", because they are on the cover. I liked the orignial colors, but I don't like to copy, so I changed the colors a bit. I added a third color, the natural white, because I thought the red color would pop more.



I've come to enjoy knitting cables lately. I especially liked the left and right cable bands, flanking the big middle one.

On the back leg there was ribbing, which was very annoying to knit. It looks really good, but I could not memorize it, I could not get into a rythms knitting them, because the ribbing was not the same old (k2, p2) or some such. Anyway, once I reached the foot, it was plain old stockinette stitch on the bottom.



Can you see the heart shape in the color work. The original had an open heart, I just added one red stitch at the bottom tip, to close the heart, and I like it much better that way.




They turned out a little too wide around the ankle and foot part. I usually knit my socks with 64 stitches on the leg, and 60 stitches for the foot part. These were knit with 72 stitches throughout. I must say I needed the width with the colorwork, but further down they are loose, and I made them a few rows too long too. So, I might give them away, or hope they'll shrink a little in the washing machine.


pattern: Sockstravaganza by Kirsten Kapur from the book "Brave New Knits"
yarn: Elann Sock it to me 4-ply (discontinued) and I'm not sad about that. Not the nicest yarn to work with.
needle: 2.25mm

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