The slowness of socks



Charming picture, I know.  Somehow my socks never photograph well on the needles.  These are socks for Steve, made from Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn in the Icehouse colorway.  Originally I had plans to do a fancier pattern for myself, but settled on the Fingering Weight Toe-up Gusset Heel Socks by Wendy Knits, which is my standard pattern for socks if I don't want to carry a pattern around with me.  I have the basic paradigms memorized and I usually make a few modifications to make it even simpler and less fussy at the heel turn.  I do these socks two at a time on two circular needles according to this tutorial that I found in the dark ages before Ravelry.  Except that I do Judy's Magic Cast-on instead and do them from toe-up, which allows you to try them on as you go and finish when you run out of yarn or whenever you get tired of knitting them, whichever comes first.

I started seriously working on them about 3 weeks ago and turned the heels last weekend.  Still going very slowly but maybe I'll finish them this weekend.  Men's socks take longer because they have more stitches.  I keep getting comments like "Oh, those are cute!" Steve is okay with people calling his future socks cute.  Just so long as he gets them.  Because as much of a pain as it is to knit socks (I'm not really a sock knitting fanatic like the folks behind Sock Summit), people I have knit socks for love to wear them.  They wear them out and want more.  So go forth and knit socks, but beware that if you give them away, you may not be able to stop.