Sunidesus Knits

These are my brother's Christmas present socks. They had a couple techniques I'd never tried before (stranded colorwork & mosaic patterns) and I'm very happy with how they turned out. And it's always nice to try out a new technique and be successful at it!

The pattern is Maze from Sensational Knitted Socks, but I modified it to be toe up. I did m1 increases on the gusset instead of the kfb increases that I usually use. That way I could start each new stripe with the correct color a bit more easily.

I did unfortunately have a couple false starts. I had originally intended to use orange for the color, but once I was halfway up the foot I realized it was looking like Halloween. Which really wasn't what I wanted. The next attempt used the green and the orange, but that was too busy. When I finally tried the black and green combo it all worked much better!

My one snag was when my brother tried them on. They were too long. I ended up unpicking the cast on at the toes, ripping out about half an inch, and then kitchenering the toes back together. It worked, but they aren't the best looking toes ever.

I also didn't anticipate quite how much the pattern would affect the horizontal stretch of the socks. They're a bit tighter than I intended and don't slip on quite as easily as I'd like. Once they're on they're fine though.

I am blessed with family and friends that appreciate knit gifts. The couple weeks before Christmas my brother was pestering me to know when it would be his turn to get socks, and then was very happy when he opened the box on Christmas!

The Stats...
Needles: 0's (2mm)
Yarn: KP Stroll (Forest Tonal & black)
Pattern: Maze from Sensational Socks (modded to toe up - m1's on gusset)
Sizing: 17 to 35, 7.5" to gusset start (should have done 7")
SPI: forgot to get this
Started: 12-13-10
Finished: 12-20-10

These are my dad's Christmas present socks. He is incredibly difficult to shop for so I ended up swiping some sock yarn from my mom's stash (with permission, and it has since been replaced) and making him socks. He liked the other pair I made him quite a bit so I figured it'd be a safe present.

They're my basic generic sock pattern with a cable whacked on the front. I'll have to check my stitch dictionaries later to figure out exactly where the cable came from, but my notes say it was called "rhombus". Because I don't like purling I did it over a stockinette background instead of purling. I've done that before and I really like the way it looks. It ends up having a more subtle look than is normal for a cable.

The Stats...
Needles: 0's (2mm)
Yarn: Stroll - Basalt Heather (from Mom's stash)
Pattern: my generic with Rhombus cable up front
Sizing: 14 to 32, 6.5" to gusset start
SPI: forgot to check (probably 8)
Started: 12-21-10
Finished: 12-24-10