Fini

For the last three months, I've been working on socks. Big socks. Socks for the Mittens for Akkol group. Socks for 16 year olds who will soon graduate from an orphanage and go forth into the world.

From left to right, these socks are for Vitaly S., Sergey B., and Maria A. For scale, the brown ones have a foot length of 11.5", and were knit using 80 stitches around at 9 sts per inch. That a whole lot of stitches, right there. Three socks in three months, and they like them tall for warmth, so I knit these toe-up so that I could make these tall without worrying about running out of yarn. I did the black toes/cuff to stretch the mustard yarn and make them tall enough.

This year they gave color swatches to the kids and let them pick specific Brown Sheep colors so that we knitters would have a better idea of what they wanted rather than guessing what shade of green, pink, or blue they like. So I went stash-diving for the red yarn and then ordered the brown from Knit Picks.

I was going to use Socks That Rock for the mustard color, since I have some stash in a similar colorway, but after knitting about 9 inches of sock I got concerned about wear with the STR and in any case, they just weren't working for me they way I wanted them to, so I ordered some Cascade Heritage Sock from Jimmy Beans and I am here to tell you that I am a Heritage Sock convert. Great stitch definition. Reviews on Rav indicate that it wears very well, and it is really nice to knit with. I need more of that stuff.

On the one hand, I am OVER socks. But they are also my go-to mindless knitting and they are perfect to work on at swim lessons or gymnastics or the park or when I am too tired at night to think about a pattern. So I went and signed up for just one more pair. 12" foot in browns for one of the extra sets that M4A puts together for extra graduates that may join the orphanage after the list was made a few months ago. It is hard for the group to find thin sock knitters. So I will need to finish those up to mail by May 1st.

I'm going to go stash-dive now for some brown/rust colored yarn and get going on them. May 1st is just around the corner.