Socks

I was going to post about the matching mittens I made to go with the hat from yesterday, but I don't have a photo yet, so lets go with these instead:
My 'surgery' socks. Started May 29 on the drive down for surgery. Apparently I had the first one done in early July, thanks to all those evenings in the ER getting the IV antibiotics. But the second sock....I had too much on the go, lost a bit of interest, blah blah blah. Decided to take it on the cruise to get it done. Well, I did knit a bit on the flight down (on something else), but didn't do any knitting on the cruise until the last morning when we had to be out of our cabin by 7:15AM. I didn't write anything down about the first sock because I didn't know it was going to take me 6 months to finish them, and I figured I could just 'read' the first sock.

Every single section of cable on the second sock had to be ripped out because I 'read' the first sock wrong! I started with 3x3 cables with some purl sts and a knit st in between. After doing a few crossings, I tried it on and although it was good for my ankle, there was no way the sock would fit my calf. So, I travelled the outer st on each edge of the cable, outwards by one stitch and made it part of the ribbing, and then had 2x2 cables. I continued this up for a ways, then moved the outer sts over again and just had a tiny 1x1 cable (really, just a twisted st at that point I guess).

I also did a bit extra with the short row heel. These were done toe up, and when I finished the heel and was at one side, I knitted/purled back across the center number of sts (8? 12?--the number that you knit down to and then switch to getting bigger rows), then worked back across those center sts, then turned and worked back to the other edge, then turned and worked back across the heel and then kept going around the sock. It added a bit more depth to the heel. Never underestimate the power of 3 or 4 rows, even in sock yarn!

I purposely made the sock to be fraternal. I knew that if I didn't get them exactly the same, they would irritate me. So I made them off enough so it's obvious, but I did make both with the yarn going in the same direction this time, unlike the beige ones that I had made where one started with the outer end of the ball and the other started with the inner end.

These are Austermann Step yarn, the one with aloe and jojoba. I didn't get peeling on my cuticles like I do with other wool yarns, and they are very soft. I don't think they'd make any difference to your feet though unless you wore only these socks. I'd like to make some gloves though! But not a hat. Ewww.