Monday, March 9, 2009

sockfest!2009

My sock yarn stash is approaching out-of-control status (out of control = would take me more than six months to knit it all up), and my guilt regarding this is preventing me from working on anything else until I cut it down some. In the interest of preserving what little sanity remains me, I declared March sockfest!2009. My goal is to knit four new pairs of socks and finish one other pair that's been lingering for the last month or so.

So far, it's been relatively smooth sailing. I decided to make ankle socks rather than full-length ones for four reasons. First, ankle socks don't take as long to knit, so I can make more of them faster. Second, I'd like to see if I can squeeze an entire pair of socks out of one 220-yard skein of sock yarn. Third, most of my shoes are ankle-high and I wear a lot of skirts, which means my longer socks go largely unworn during the Spring and Fall because I maintain that wearing long socks with short skirts or shorts makes you look like a dweeb. Finally, I am participating in a traveling scarf swap with the Lazy, Stupid, and Godless group and need the leftovers to do scarves out of. So, even if I can't get an entire pair of ankle socks out of 220 yards, I'll have enough left over from the second skein to work a section of a scarf without having to switch yarns.

Thus far, I have completed one and a half red and black socks and have started the ribbing for the second pair. The red and black ones will be finished either today or tomorrow, and I hope to have at least one of the second pair completed by Thursday.

I'm also working on a few patterned socks. I've finished the first sock in a set of monkeys (ravelry link), and I plan to do two other iterations of that pattern in different yarn in order to provide evidence of my policy against using variegated yarn for lace patterns. Since I wasn't overly attached to the day-glo yarn I'm using for the first pair, I figured I'd sacrifice it for Science. It should be done by the end of the week, but we'll see. My work schedule is rather hectic this week, and I have a million and one things to do when I'm not working.

Pictures to come once I've started finishing pairs.