FO: Rainbow socks

Last Friday on the bus I managed to finish the Rainbow socks and weave in all the ends. Hooray for a pair of socks in ~3 weeks!

Pattern: Rainbow socks from Magknits
Yarn: Lang Jawoll Aktion, 420 m/100 g. This pair used up maybe 2/3s of the ball, so there's plenty left for some kid socks
Needles: Knit Picks Options dpns, size 1 (2.5 mm)
Comments/mods: for whatever reason, these socks seemed to go by really quickly. I really liked doing the short row sections - something different is always good. Instead of increasing after the ribbing, I cast on the number of stitches needed for the leg in the cuff - I was planning on working the long version (6 short row sections) and wanted to have a bit more give at the cuff since it was going to come up higher on the leg. I really like how the colorway stripes in these; it reminds me of a zebra.

This was my first time using yarn over short rows (I've always done wrap and turn in the past). I thought this technique worked really well for the body of the sock leg and foot, but I was a little dubious about the heel itself.

It does make a nice decorative line for the heel (and boy did I luck out with the color placement or what?), but it might be a bit holey for my taste. Unfortunately, I can't tell for sure because these babies are nowhere near big enough for my clodhoppers, as you can see:

Rainbow sock for someone with petite feet with my somewhat stretched-out Wyvern for scale

I also loved the toes on these - for someone who is scientifically inclined and way over-educated, it never occurred to me that you could do toe decreases in any other spacing then every row or every other row. For these toes, you decrease every fourth row, then every third row, then every other row, then every row, and they come out perfectly. Genius! I'll knit these again, and I've been thinking that some Noro sock yarn and a few more stitches around might make these babies actually fit me. But that's for another day...

These are destined for the gift pile (yeehaw!) and I'll have to figure out who in my not-so-long list of people worthy of knitted socks has feet the right size. And might like the colors. Finishing these so quickly has made me interested in trying to knit a pair of socks each month for the entire year. This would do wonders for the sock yarn stash, and if I switch off knitting a gift pair with a pair for me, I'll be well shod come next winter with woolly goodies. So that would make February a "me" sock month. I'm having chickens trying to decide whether to jump on the designing bandwagon one more time and work something up for summer Knitty (which only gives me a month!), or tackle Azure. I've got just the right yarn for both, and some ideas for the design, but what it will come down to is timing, and whether I can find a suitable lace pattern in the next few days and get started. Time to get swatching I suppose.