A Long-Awaited Finish and a New Start (and Restart)

Once there was a pair of socks...almost. I worked on these last year on our trip to Kentucky. (You may recall this is the project during which I broke a needle on the trip and lost my notes about modifications...twice.)

I did not put the socks in time out--this is not why they waited so long to be finished. I had planned to use them as a sample to demonstrate my invisible cast off (or bind off, if you prefer).

Project Stats
Started: 6 Mar '11
Finished: 16 Jun '12
Pattern: Hourglass by Bev Elicerio (free)
Materials: Apple Laine Apple Pie in Arizona colourway, 2 skeins ($21.67) I've made several socks since then and each time considered using them for a demonstration, but never did. I  finished them and wore them. This morning I finished up my zigzag socks (I'll show them later, don't worry, but I don't have pictures yet) and finishing them just made me think that I couldn't wait any longer to finish these orange socks. I'll make a swatch to demonstrate the cast off method.

Meanwhile I'll enjoy wearing these (well when the weather's a little cooler, perhaps) and the memories they recall of my trip to Ottawa where I bought the yarn.

Straight forward short-row heel.

I'm not too crazy about wearing lacy socks (I don't like the look of the skin showing through) but I'm hoping that they will prevent my feet from overheating in them. Surprise, surprise...wool socks are warm. And, I know, I am a woman of cold feet, but there is such a thing as too warm. (It starts at "hot and sweaty"--no one likes that!)

Also, the colour of the yarn is way too crazy busy to let the pattern show, so it's not a great match of pattern to yarn. But it was the pattern I wanted to use at the time and the yarn is still very pretty.

Now that these are done, I can turn my attention to another pair that I started the other day:

I'm hoping to avoid the "too busy" thing by mixing a variegated with a matching solid.

It looks a little stripey, but there are patches of solid colour as well. I'll keep the pattern simple just in case. Not that I know what I'll be doing. I got as far as the toe plus a few rows but it was too big. Now to decide whether to go down a needle size or cast on fewer stitches?? I'll let you know...