So Many Socks

I fought the urge to add a blech to the post title because I wouldn’t want to make it seem as though there was anything wrong with the pattern or yarn I used.  They are completely perfect, really.  I love Gynx Yarns self-striping.  She is a self-striping sensei as far as I’m concerned and Susan B. Anderson is the  da Vinci of sock design.  I had the best of tools to work with here, but..yeah, it’s just the whole tired of socks thing.

Let me tell you all about them because everything I have to say is very positive.

First up, I think sport weight is my sock yarn weight of choice.  Knitting on this pair of socks is when I realized the weight, my tension, and tiny needles all sync up better than ever.  The planets aligned, and I knit the perfect pair.

I also know what everyone is talking about when they say that Karbonz have an uneven needle tip that pulls at the stitches as you adjust them across the needles, but I don’t really care.  I like the drag of the shaft that helps tighten up my loose tension too much to try another type of needle right now.  It also doesn’t seems to happen on my other Karbonz needles, just 0s and 1s.

The Smooth Operator pattern is incredible.  This is my second time to knit it and I will be going back to it again and again.  I do want to try the method she added in the addendum to the pattern for knitting afterthought heels with even less of a gap.  (Edit: I have tried the gap-less method and will post about it soon.)  But I’ve had pretty good success with the method in the first part of the pattern.  In fact, they are the neatest heels I’ve ever done.

Here’s the deets:  I used size US 0 needles and  Gynx Yarns‘ Strong Sport in her Gynx’s Palette colorway.   I love her Strong Sport base for socks.  The darker, jewel-toned colors really are perfect for a namesake colorway.

I knit these two-at-a-time in the magic loop method.  It’s my second time to cast on for two-at-a-time properly, instead of knitting the beginning of each sock, then placing them on the same long circular.  I have to say, doing adult things feels nice.

For this pair I planned ahead and, after winding up two balls that started at the same point in the the striping pattern, I removed enough for matching, self-striping heels from each.  (I believe I figured I’d need about 7 grams of contrasting yarn for just the heels, so I used my yarn scale to measure out 10 grams for each, just in case.)  I love the way they look!

And, now that I’ve knit about 12 pairs of socks, all of the cast on variations aren’t as fiddly as they once were.  I even knit a little on these in a movie.  But I think it was Arrival, and that movie was incredible, so I tucked the knitting away almost as soon as it started.

Guys, I’ve got two more finished pairs to post about and am working on the last pair in a Christmas colorway for my Box o Sox!  So… many… socks…

I knit these while inhaling tea from a recent David’s Teas order and marathoning This is Us, which means I cried quite a bit while knitting them.

(more on ravelry, kollabora, instagram, and flickr)

What are you last minute marathoning/ knitting/ sobbing over before Christmas, friends?