Sockses

Hey, guess what? I took pictures of my socks!

First up, Socks that Rocks' Lenore socks, in the Lenore colorway (the pattern and yarn are from last year's sock club).



I used a 2.5 mm needle, and since they're only 60 sts around, they seemed to go really fast. Speaking of which, how many stitches do you usually use for your socks? When I'm not following someone else's pattern, I tend to use 68 or 72, which fits fine, but 64 and now 60 also seem to be fine. Obviously, this should be explained by gauge, but here's the thing: 64- and 72-stitch socks using the same yarn, same needles, and similar stitch patterns (so, the gauge should be the same) both fit. Do you think I'm knitting more loosely on 64-stitch socks because I'm worried they'll be too tight and thereby compensating without noticing? Or is it just that wool is magic?

Moving on, we have Monkey socks for Sunflowerfairy:



These also seemed speedy, even though I knit all 6 reps of the lace pattern on the cuffs like a good little knitter. My Monkeys only have 5 reps, because I like shorter cuffs (and possibly because I got impatient).

And the infamous (to me) 2-at-a-time socks. I'm still working them both at once, and while it's going better now that I've started storing one of the yarns inside the socks to reduce tangling, I'm still not crazy about it. (I might have liked the technique better if I didn't also need 2 balls of yarn for each sock, huh?)



On the bright side, although you can't see it here, I've turned the heel on both of these, so the end is in sight.

I noticed a while back that I didn't have any yarn in my stash that had been there for more than a year (at least not any complete skeins--there are probably scraps destined for hats that have been floating around longer than that, and as I type this I also remember that I have a partial skein of Red Heart acrylic from a craft project that's 18 months old... but I many never use the rest, so it doesn't count). And of course once I noticed, I wanted to keep it that way.

Mostly, this has happened without any particular effort, but suddenly I have 500 yards of handpainted laceweight (which I never photographed--what a surprise! It's shimmery purples, blues, and greys) which will turn 1 this month. What to make? I've thought about the Shetland triangle (sorry family, that's a Ravelry link that won't work for you), Laminaria (maybe with a contrast edge, because I don't have quite enough), or maybe I should make something up?