I’ve debated with myself about whether to show any of the socks before they’re complete, but I think a little taster of a sock or two is permitted. The yarn is the Smoothie Sock from Artist’s Palette Yarns I blogged about last week.

So to set the ball rolling, I’ve created a survey to find out what the basics of the patterns should be. You can click here to take the survey and I would greatly appreciate it if anyone who has an interest in socks could fill it in. It’s only 10 questions and will take but a moment of your time. And then I can starting thinking about playing with yarn..!

I haven’t done a huge amount of knitting in the past few days, but I have a manly sock done:

and the other one is just past the ribbing, so expect a FO post around July.

I have written up the Marina shawl pattern and it is now starting the process of being test knitted by several people, which is a new experience for me and will mean that the pattern is guaranteed to be more error free than it would be otherwise (not going to say 100% error free as I am not a fool!), though it does mean that it’ll be another couple of weeks before it’s available.

And I haven’t even got to posting about the shawl exchange! More on that in the next post. Right now, a small person is stirring from their nap..!

I present one man-sized short-row heel. It took a little longer than I’d hoped as I messed up the second half, where you work back along the yarnovers, and had to frog the whole heel back. But second time worked like a charm and even after frogging still probably took less time than knitting a flap.

I hope it’s not just me that has issues with clinging to the familiar when it comes to knitting (it isn’t, is it?!). I learnt to knit socks from a very simple, top-down, heel-flap pattern (time for gratuitous first sock photo):

and it stuck with me. I suspect if my first sock had been a toe-up sock with a short-row heel I’d have avoided top-down socks. It’s good to get away from a comfort zone for knitting and try something else out. After all, it’s only yarn – it can be frogged.

In my defence, I can now assure anyone that has the same yarn that it doesn’t pool. I love the fine stripes of gold and navy and little patches of olive green and hopefully Mr B won’t consider them to be a bit on the overly-cheerful side.

However, this sock is not going to be just my usual standard, heel flap patten that I do for every plain sock I ever knit. For one thing I’m pretty bored with knitting every mansize sock in exactly the same way and I am also fed up with having to keep a tally of the heel flap rows because I can’t trust myself to count the rows correctly, and live in fear of having socks with lopsided heels. So I decided that I would try a SHORT-ROW HEEL instead.

I have only worked short-row heels once before, on Rose’s tiny Better Than Booties socks. That pattern uses Priscilla Gibson-Roberts’ short-row heel method which I found worked really well and didn’t leave any unsightly holes: something which has often put me off the idea of short-row heels in the past. Her Priscilla’s Dream Socks pattern uses the same heel (and toe) and is available in Favorite Socks which I have (as well as Interweave Knits Fall 2000, which I don’t) and it’s this pattern that I will be following. Once the leg is a little longer, that is.

The book is called The Joy of Sox and these are my socks as they appear in the book:

The brief for the book was that it was a slightly risqué play on a book with a similar title and the patterns and book style is slightly tongue in cheek, but not rude so I can still show it to my grandmother. My socks are cute rather than sexy, and more in mind for wearing on a cool evening, curled up on the sofa with a loved one watching DVDs, which is what I tend to do a lot anyway.

It’s like cardboard. If it was any stiffer, I could use it as a sock blocker itself. The other sock which escaped the machine is fine, but unless Mr B suddenly develops a rare, foot-shrinking illness, or only ever has one cold foot, he has a pair of unwearable socks. Socks knitted from a not inexpensive yarn which I was on a waiting list to buy. Socks which took forever to knit while I was perma-feeding a tiny baby. There may have been swearing.

So it’s back to Trekking, Regia and Opal 75% wool sock yarns for this household. I will never again be swayed by pretty colours, no matter how much they taunt me. I am immune.

The sun is gone, it’s cold and miserable outside, so to be completely unseasonal, my summery Clover sock pattern is now available as a free download.

My Jules sock pattern, from Issue 1 of The Inside Loop, is now available as a free download. It features Mr B’s feet in a starring role on the front page; what more could you want?!

But I couldn’t not make Mr B’s annual Christmas Socks. This will be the fourth year that he’s had them and it’s becoming a bit of a tradition now and given that it’s hard enough to buy presents for him as it is, this is at least one thing that I can give him that he can’t just go and buy himself.

I’m using the Mini Mochi I bought earlier in the year for these. So far it’s knitting up nicely. It does have a slight fuzzy halo and is a bit loosely/tightly spun in places, but the colours are gorgeous and it’s producing a very jaunty pair of socks.