Emily's stripey socks

So I decided to make a pair of socks for Emily to thank her for being in the wedding and for being a wonderful friend in general. Envisioning colorful stripey socks, I purchased these lovely skeins of Charcoal and Rainbow Lorna's Laces sock yarn on eBay. I found this Spun Magazine pattern for Basic Ribbed Socks, which looked nice and simple. This article was also very helpful, especially for pointing me to the twisted German cast-on, which is so easy and stretchy! This was not the first pair of socks I ever started, but it would be the first pair I'd complete. (The Koigu sock is still on the needles, but I plan to rip it out and start over one of these days, probably with a different pattern -- maybe something toe-up with a short row heel.)

Before I started the actual socks, I did a little swatch in the form of the first few rows of a sock. I wanted to make sure my gauge was right (which it wasn't -- I needed to go up a needle size) and figure out what looked best -- single rows alternated, or multiple rows of each skein at a time, or some funky fair isle pattern. It was fun to experiment and spontaneously change whenever I felt like it. In the end I went with alternating single rows of each skein. The fair isle looked kind of neat, but I wasn't sure I'd be able to get the tension right for the floats.

Here's how the socks came out. They aren't identical twins (maybe my gauge changed a little on the second one), but they're pretty close. Best of all, they fit Emily!














Emily's stripey socks
Started: May 11
Finished: May 21
Pattern: Basic Ribbed Socks from Spun Magazine
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, 1 skein Charcoal, 1 skein Rainbow
Needles: US 2 dpns