Baby Socks FO and the First Sunshine Sock

Last Thursday, I finished the baby socks I posted about last week. I meant to blog about them on Friday, but completely forgot! Every time I see these, I just keep thinking about how adorable they are! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not longing to make a ton more baby stuff and I’m not wanting a baby of my own to put them on. It’s just that these little baby socks are cute as all get out and so tiny! I’m not used to tiny baby things as no one I know has little babies, so I’m rarely around them at all. I wanted to make a pair to have made baby socks (in case the need to know this ever arises) and to use up scraps of leftover sock yarn I have. Anyway, on with the socks! This is my second pair of socks in the 52 Pair Plunge.

O hai, we are tiny babeh socks!

Pattern: My own (My Ravelry project page.)
Started: June 10, 2009
Completed: June 17, 2009
Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock, in an unknown colorway (lost the band long ago)
Needles: Knit Picks US 0 (2.0mm) DPNs
Notes: Cast on 44 stitches, knit for 15 rounds, work short row heel down to 6 sts, work 16 rounds, work toe decreasing 4 sts every other round until 3 sts left on each needle, kitchner to close. These would have taken me a lot less time if I didn’t get all determined to finish up the Sprucey Lucy socks, but even so, it only took about a week to get them done anyhow. No idea what will become of them right now since I don’t know a baby that will fit into them! They are cute, though, aren’t they? 🙂

Friday, with only one plain sock on the needles and yarn that was screaming at me to knit with it, I cast on for the Sunshine Socks from Cookie A’s book, Sock Innovations. The yarn that was screaming at me was Wollemiese in Sonne, which says “sunshine” to me! After talking to Sarah R. in my knitting group who’s knitting these with Yarntini yarn, I decided to modify it a bit. She said that starting with 60 stitches for the cuff and then increasing to 80 stitches for the leg made the sock a bit tight in the cuff and too loose around the ankle. She said that if she were to do it again, she’d just start with 72 stitches, making the cuff bigger and not so tight and eliminating one pattern repeat in the leg. Following her advice, I went to cast on 72 stitches, only to find that doesn’t really work with the cuff chart since it’s based on a 6 stitch repeat (k1, p1, k2, p2, repeat around). So, I cast on 66 stitches, knit the cuff, then on the next round, I knit and increased to 72. The pattern says to follow the increase chart, but that would have given me too many stitches, so I just sort of winged it doing the increases on a knit round. I got a lot of progress done on it this weekend and even thought I might get it done Sunday, but I ended up being too tired to finish the toe. Today I did the bind off for the toe of the first sock and immediately cast on for the second one.

It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) sunshiny day! (I can see clearly now, anyone?)

I have a feeling I’ll be showing you the 3rd pair for the 52 Pair Plunge pretty soon! I absolutely love this pattern and the yarn. It’s been a match made in heaven 🙂

PS. You know the Summer of Socks 2009 started yesterday, right? I’m curious to see how many socks I’ll be able to knit up this summer!