The Perfect Sock!

Okay, I have to come clean with you. I’ve been working on a project that I haven’t blogged yet. I actually started it on Friday? Saturday? I started it before I finished the bags on Sunday, because they were blocking. Hmmm. I’m thinking it must have been Friday. Maybe even Thursday night. Anyway, I started on a pair of socks for Stephen. I’ve been knitting and knitting but I haven’t knit him a pair of socks since the Thuja I knit him back in January. And I’ve had a hank of Opal handpainted sock yarn sitting in my stash, that he picked out during my expedition to Holy Threads in June, and I hadn’t even wound it yet. When he asked me to make him some socks, I decided it was time (of course, he did whine a little about having to help wind the hank into a ball, but it’s the price of hand knitted socks, you know?)

I had the yarn but not the pattern picked out. After some perusing of my back issues of IK and other assorted patterns, I settled on the Father and Son Socks from the Fall IK. Why these socks? Well, they’re pretty simple and therefore conducive to showcasing the lovely handpainted yarn. Also, they’re pretty simple so they’re totally manly. Lastly, they’re already sized for a man’s foot and specifically the leg is 8.5" in circumference. Since Stephen’s ankle is, in reality, 8.5" in circumference (according to my less than fastidious measuring technique) I thought that the pattern would likely be a very good fit with very little tinkering with it. In the past I have spent a lot of time rewriting entire patterns to make them fit my tiny feet (and the tiny feet of my family members) so I really like it when I find a pattern that I can just knit without thinking about much. Stephen, luckily, has very standard sized feet.

I cast on using the size 2 needles called for in the pattern (which also happen to be my favorite sock knitting needles. Due to an unfortunate man-sized-feet-stepping-on-knitting-bag-incident I only have four of the five dpns left. But I digress.) I cast on, knitted a little swatch, measured, and thought, well, I’m a half a stitch too large. Close enough, right? Uh-huh. I cast on for the sock, knitted all the way through row 32 of the pattern and then went to bed. The next morning I took a good hard look at the sock, measured it, and ripped the whole thing. It was definitely too big. Additionally, the size 2's weren’t giving me the nice, tight, sock fabric that I’m used to getting. So I cast on again, this time using size 1 dpn’s. Ahh. Perfect I thought. So I knit and knit and knit.

Last night, I started the toe decreases. The whole time I’m thinking, this sock is still too big. I’m going to have to rip the whole thing and start over again with fewer stitches or even smaller needles. Damn. Finally, I had Stephen try the sock on. And guess what? It fit absolutely perfectly in every respect. Perfect, I tell you. Now, I’m still allowing for the possibility that the foot will be a little long since I haven’t actually finished the toe yet, but if so it’s so easy to rip and re-knit a toe, you know? And the rest of the sock fits so perfectly that I’m going to take precise (hah!) measurements of the sock and knit all others to those dimensions. I’ve knit the perfect sock and the perfect sock template.

Of course, I haven’t knit the second sock yet, so the jury is still out on whether I will manage to knit a perfect pair of socks.