Sparkly Knit Socks

I kind of-sort of recently went through my list of blog posts that I've typed up on my Blogger Dashboard and noticed that this little post has been sitting there for almost two years, unpublished. Not okay. It's not like I'm an awesome knitter and knit socks all the time like Lauren (nothing wrong with that, props to you!), so I just had to share this amazing feat of mine despite the huge time delay. Just FYI, this was actually written way back in the early Summer of 2013.

I finally finished knitting my first pair of socks. Go me!

It only took me 4 months to knit them. I started these socks back in early February, originally intending to give them to my mom for her birthday. But about half way through I tried them on, and they fit my feet perfectly. I have pretty narrow feet, so I knew that these socks weren't going to fit my mom comfortably. So...I was knitting myself socks instead!

This was the first time I knit two socks at once using the magic loop method. I attempted the cast on at least twenty times until I realized I was making the same mistake each time. When I fixed this problem, the rest of the socks were pretty simple. Except for the heel. I hate picking up stitches. Once I got to this step, I stopped knitting for about a month and almost gave up entirely. Luckily my best friend is the best knitter I know; Lauren spent an entire evening showing me the correct way to pick up stitches so I could finish the heel. Thanks Lauren :)

Once I finished the heel, I wanted to add a pattern for the leg of my sock. I decided on pattern number 50: Float Stitch Rib from the Vogue Knitting Stitchionary- Volume 1 Knit & Purl book. I wish I had started the pattern back at the foot at my sock. When I start knitting my next pair of socks, I'll definitely do that. Being my first pair of knit socks, I really didn't care about matching the blocks of color amongst the two socks.

I finished my socks with 13 rows of 1 x 1 ribbing. I thought 2 x 2 ribbing would look funny with the pattern I chose, but I like the texture of the ribbing, so knit 1, purl 1 it was.

Overall I am happy with my finished socks. I love the yarn I chose, especially the sparkles! I have to struggle a little to pull the socks over my heels, but Lauren says that knit socks are supposed to be pretty snug. The looser the socks are, the quicker they will wear out.

I've bought tons of yarn since this first pair of finished socks. I've already picked out which skein I'm going to use for my next pair (hint: it's from Stitches West 2013!), but I still haven't started them yet. I need to work up the patience and courage to cast on again. 

Thanks for letting me share a relatively old handmade item of mine. I promise to blog about more recent items from here on out. It's been two whole years since I've finished and wrote about these socks, yet I still haven't started my second pair. I plan to start my next pair of socks this summer though; I think they'll make for the best travel knitting project when I'm back home in California for a month.