Straw into gold

Or in this case, yarn into socks.

Pattern: Rumpled! by Alice Yu, for the Knit Love Sock Club 2010, Installment #1
Yarn: Alchemy Yarns of Transformation Juniper in Rumplestiltskein
Needles: US 1.5/2.5 mm circulars
Gauge: 9 sts/12 rows per inch
Start/finish: 26 January - 15 March 2010
Comments/mods: I loved this yarn colorwise - it was the perfect thing for a grey January in the UK. As previously mentioned, the yarn was a bit splitty, but it wasn't too bad, and it has such gorgeous sproing, that it made up for the splitty-ness. Wearing them is like have wooly elastic on my feet.

I did modify a couple of things. The pattern repeat is 24 rows long, and the pattern as written has you knit 1.3 repeats before starting the heel. I am impatient enough to want socks to be on the shorter side, but that seemed way short for me, so I wanted a longer leg. But since they're knit from the top down, I was paranoid about running out of yarn. So I carefully weighed the yarn I had, knit half a repeat, weighed again, weighed at the end of the heel flap, etc, etc. I worked another half repeat on the leg, and could have done a full repeat, since I ended up getting a sock and a half out of one skein. And I have big feet.

The only other thing I did a bit differently was to use a large needle for the long-tail cast on edge to make sure it was stretchy enough. The stitch pattern was great fun to knit, but easy to remember, so I didn't have to carry the chart around with me obsessively. The first sock took about a week, and then the olympics happened and all other knitting was put on hold. Now they're done, just in time for warmer weather, some sun and daffodils!

Oh well, they'll be very welcome when it gets cold again next fall. Or June...or next week. I guess it could be any time actually!