Sockapaltwoza Socks

Last night I was nearly done with a really profound blog post about the Sockapaltwoza socks I finished knitting on Tuesday, when I must have hit a wrong button.  I'm not sure what happened.  Maybe I closed the entry screen instead of minimizing it.  I just don't know.  All I do know is that my carefully written blog entry suddenly vanished into the mysterious void that is my computer.  There's a television commercial on around here, I don't know if it's local or not, where a frantic woman grabs her computer screen and howls, "Nooooooooo!"  A "geeky squad" of computer fix-it types hear her moans of despair and come bursting through the door to save the day.  That howling woman was me last night, but no one came crashing through the door to find my missing blog entry.  I was so irritated with myself and computers in general, that I uttered a few choice curse words and just went to bed.  So here I am, the next morning, trying to resend a journal entry without unintentionally zapping it into oblivion.

The important thing is that the socks are done and just waiting for the mail date.  I got a later start on this project than anticipated, because while I had every intention of working on them while we took our big family vacation in late July/early August, all that really happened was that I took the skeins of yarn with me and never started them.  I'm sure the yarn had a lovely holiday in Bali, but they didn't actually become socks until we were back in the much less exotic suburbia of Missouri.  They are destined for somewhere that sounds really interesting, though.  Where are they going?  Stay tuned.   But here are the knitting statistics:  I used a 75% cotton/25% nylon yarn called Simpatico, which is a German yarn, that I picked up at Stitches Midwest a while back.  It's white with lots of little flecks in different shades of blue, knit up on size 1 US needles.  I just used a basic memorized sock pattern, but I added a 19 stitch lace panel going down the front of the sock that was inspired by the Padded Footlet Sock pattern featured in Summer 2005 Interweave Knits Magazine.  Then I added a bit of ribbing alongside the lace portion on the leg to keep the cotton from being slouchy.  Now I just have to wait until the mail date and fret about whether or not the recipient will like them.  I think the last time I did the original Sockapalooza sock exchange, I had a nightmare that my sock pal hated the socks I knit for her.  But insecure nightmares aside, I have absolutely loved these sock exchanges.  Alison does a phenomenal job of keeping all the participants organized.  You should scroll through some of the completed incredible socks that have come out of Sockapaltwoza so far.  I just keep linking up to different socks and it's like a total sock smorgasbord.  I want to knit every pair myself.  And after organizing all my sock yarn earlier this week and being impressed by the size of the sock yarn mountain, I probably have the stash to knit most of them already.  (I should feel some sort of sock yarn hoarding guilt, but I really don't.  Is that a sin?)  The socks that I've seen so far in this sock exchange are incredibly inspiring. 

And unrelated to socks, but a blast from my knitting past, I got an email last night from my youngest sister in Oregon.  She's the recipient of some of my goofier creations because she has no qualms about happily wearing the ridiculous.  She was going to play Bunco with some friends and the party theme was "Bunco In Paris".  (Who thinks up these things?)  She wanted to let me know that she thought it was yet another perfect event to wear the Fry Up beret (you have to scroll down the page to see a photo of her in it at a previous party) out.  I knit this breakfast food themed beret for her this past Spring and this is the third party that I know of that the hat has attended.  Remind me to always knit for my sister.  She's so enthusiastic about the completely ridiculous.  I just love it.

Comments

[Mozemen]

Gorgeous socks! Lucky person who's going to get them.

[minnie]

love the socks, email me and tell me where they're going, i'd love to know! i'll tell you where mine are going, too. and i'm STILL waiting for the buggers to dry. sigh. however, i like the pattern enough, that i think i'm gonna make some socks for a4a with some bulky i bought. it's allison's anklet pattern, and i'm going to adapt it. too cool! and my sons are the same way about my knitting. they LOVE stuff i knit for them. in fact, i need to get around to frogging liam's sweater, because he got too tall for it, and i'm going to use sweater wizard and make it top down, so i can add to it if i need to. i handspun and knit a hat for the boys to share, and they adored that too! don't know if liam will wear it in jr high, but it's cute! i'll dig it up, and take a pic to post.

[Tracy]

Typepad needs a back button doesn't it? Your socks look wonderful, I think they're perfect with that lace in the subtle colour. Your pal will love them.

[alison]

Very pretty! Love that lace pattern. So glad that you're enjoying the sock swap. It's a blast for me too! :)

[Linz]

Great socks!

[NYCMouse]

Perfect matching of yarn to pattern--or patterns! Love them.