Two Left Feet

Y'all know hats are my favorite things to knit. Shawls and infinity scarves are tied for second. But sometimes I do knit other things.

Sometimes (very rarely) I knit socks.

I knit these socks with the most basic pattern from Ann Budd's Getting Started Knitting Socks. In all my knitting years, it's the only sock pattern I've ever bothered with. It's a top-down pattern, meaning knitting starts at the sock cuff and ends with grafting the toe stitches together with a kitchener stitch. Turning the heel of a sock and picking up stitches for a gusset is tedious work, but kitchener stitch is a pain in the butt. Honestly, Getting Started Knitting Socks is the only reason I somewhat know how to kitchener stitch, but I've used that grafting technique in a few other projects, so it can't be all that bad.

I knit these socks my freshman year of college, which means they've held up for about eight years! I've never even had to darn them. My sturdy American craftsmanship is partially to thank... but, really, the yarn I used is the best sock yarn I've ever come across. 

This yarn was one of my first purchases from a local yarn shop. I had moved to Boone, NC to attend school at App State and I had never even set foot inside an LYS. Obviously, it was a life-altering experience. There were walls and cubbies full of yarns of all types--workhorse wools, superfine mohair, zany artyarns--it was all there. I was immediately drawn to the hand-painted yarns dyed by a local artisan, Miss Babs. Her wool was some of the softest I'd ever felt. I think Mother's Day or some other holiday was approaching and my mom didn't need hats or scarves or a lot of winter anything on the east coast of North Carolina, so I picked out some super thin yarn in colors I thought she would like and set out on the daunting task of teaching myself how to knit socks. Because everyone needs socks.

They look so large when they're not being worn! But they fit my US size 8 feet perfectly.

The yarn I ended up choosing was Miss Babs' Yummy 2-ply Superwash Merino in the colorway Iris. It is superwash wool, which means it can go in the washing machine, but should be dried flat. Normally I let these socks air dry because I'm afraid of ruining them in the dryer, but sometimes they get stretched out of shape. When that happens, I toss them in the dryer and hope for the best. They've felted slightly over the years, but they're the most comfortable socks I own... and the most sentimental. My mom passed away a few years after I made them for her, so I inherited my own gifted knitwear.

And now I have this wonderful yarn to knit up. My family gave me these lace-weight skeins for Christmas. It's Miss Babs' Lace-Weight Merino and Silk in the colorway Isadora. This yarn is so soft that I keep petting the skeins and not bothering with winding them in preparation for knitting. Which is fine, as I have no pattern in mind at the moment.

I can only hope whatever I make lasts as long as these socks have!

Happy making!