Once Upon a Sock – January 2019

January 2019! January 2019! What is that even. *Kermit flail*

It’s the first Thursday of the month (and the first Thursday of 2019! whaaaat!), which means it is is Once Upon a Sock time, a link-up for blog posts about handmade socks in whatever stage they’re in. Hosted by the lovely Paula of Spin a Yarn, you should definitely join us.

I hope you all had lovely holidays – mine definitely involved a fair bit of crafting, quite a bit of family visiting us (we hosted my parents from the 23rd to the 28th and my mother and sister in law and my nephew on that side came round for Boxing Day.), much food/grazing on chocolate and plenty of fizz. And a distinct lack of being up before the sun rises (yes, going back to work yesterday was a shock to the system.)

But now it is January, the shiny start to a shiny new year (hemhem), so best foot forward and all – I have finished socks to share! Behold, my completed Parkamoor socks! Fresh off the needles yesterday so technically, my first FO of 2019!

They’re knitted in Regia’s Pairfect which are designed to give you the best chance of starting at the same point for an entirely matching pair. Mine are in Anthracite, which is meant to be a sort of ombre grays but you can’t really see much of the ombre, so it’s a light leg and a dark foot! Oh well!

It’s a lovely pattern though and I’m not just saying that because they’re by fellow OUaSer, Katherine! The cables are neatly designed and give enough brainpower to keep you thinking. Also, excellent cabling without a cable needle instructions, if you’ve ever wanted to try that.

Although, I will admit that as these were my knitting while moving house pair, there are one or two quirks to mine that are not as written! Chiefly, I forgot two cm knit plain stocking stitch after the cables and went straight into the heel on the first sock, which meant I had to do the same on the second so I didn’t have one leg longer than the other (didn’t spot that until I was casting on for sock two.) and secondly, I entirely failed to do eye of the partridge and just did slip stitch on the heel. Oops! (There was also some immediately after the movers left knitting where I forgot that you decrease a gusset on every second row and knitted/ripped back the world’s tiniest gusset. )

But aside from those operator errors, I am already planning a second pair, this time with the after-thought heel in the future!

I have a another post to come about last year/this year’s crafting plans so I shan’t go into too much detail but I have cast on (having unpacked my yarn and needles now), the first in a pair of Beaufort socks, in the pattern yarn, which I bought as a kit early last year. It’s a 5-ply (or Gansey weight) in a lovely rusty orange so I look forward to having pictures of something more exciting than the toe to show in the future.