Manly Purple Socks

This pair of socks makes just number 4 for my 26 Pair Plunge... Clearly I need to get cracking if I want to even get remotely close to finishing that goal. Fortunately I knit socks fairly quickly, particularly when they are not as many stitches as these.

The combination of the fine gauge and Salvbard's shapely calves meant that these had a whole lot of knitting to them. Trekking XXL is such a fantastic yarn for socks for him though. It is available in colors that he is happy the wear, but there is enough variation that keeps me interested. And despite the fact that the yarn is on the finer side for boot socks, they really do wear terrifically well.

This is not the first pair I have made for him from this yarn. I also made a grey pair that got an amazing 20 months of regular wear before I had to replace the toes! You just can't beat that.

Yarn: Zitron Trekking (XXL) in color 66

Yarn Supplier: Mind's Eye Yarns

Pattern: cuff down, 2X2 rib, short row heel, wedge toe

Needles: US 1 - 2.25 mm

It is funny how different a yarn can look knit up. When I first saw this yarn in the ball, it struck me as black with bits of color. When it was knit up, it struck me as purple with dark places. Fortunately Salvbard still likes them. He had better watch out though, because our friend Jasra has her eyes on them and keeps threatening to steal his purple socks.

These were a pair of 88 stitch circumference socks. For some reason I did not record the number of stitches I used for the last pair I made (bad blogger!), but this seemed big to me. Originally I had planned to decrease as I got down the leg, but when I had him try them on, it was quickly apparent that I would in fact not be able to get them as far up his calf as I thought simply because of them not reaching around the top of it.

It turns out that it is just as well I did not make the leg longer though, because the extra number of stitches around meant that I used up more yardage than I was expecting. It was not short in the end, but there was less than 35 yards left when I was done between both socks.