After completing five pairs of handspun handknit socks in a row (with a brief break to make a baby sweater), what do you suppose I made next?

If you guessed more handspun handknit socks, you’d be correct.

My Old Man’s son had a birthday in February, and it had been awhile since I made him anything (he believes that I now direct all my gift-making energy towards his girlfriend, and he may be right). Around the time I was completing my second pair of socks for myself, I realized that the yarn I had on the wheel at the moment would be perfect for socks for him.

This is Hello Yarn Targhee in “Bracken and Gorse,” the November 2014 fiber club, which I spun up as 280 yards of light worsted weight 2-ply. I had initially been thinking to weave with it, but my recent handspun sock obsession shifted my thinking.

As soon as I was done with my Munhacke Campfire Socks, I cast on:

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I have to marvel again at how quickly worsted-ish socks grow:

They grow so fast!

Of course I used David’s Toe-Up Sock Cookbook, this time with no afterthought heel or anything unusual at all, other than throwing in my beloved 3×1 garter rib for the leg. If you want to do ribbing for a sock but want it to be as fast and easy as possible, go with garter rib. Though if you are like me, you will forget that’s what you were doing and accidentally switch to regular rib for the second sock. I did this for two of my last three pairs of garter rib socks.

But this pair, I got just right.

I will admit that, once I tried them on, I really kind of wanted to keep them for my own self.

They are so soft and cozy! But since I had just made two pairs for myself already, I managed to give them away as planned.

The recipient seemed pleased!

And the fit seemed pretty spot on.

I am very, very happy with how this pair turned out.

Handspun Bracken and Gorse Socks

raveled

After I was done, I still had roughly 90 yards of the yarn left. I briefly experimented with turning into more socks, striped with some Stonehedge Shepherd’s Wool:

But I wasn’t loving it, and I soon came up with another idea of something I want to save it for. More details on that another day, but – believe it or not – it’s not socks.

Immediately after finishing a pair of handspun knee-high-ish socks for myself, I cast on for another pair, using my handspun Hello Yarn Superwash BFL in Mochi, the first yarn I finished in 2014:

Hello Yarn Superwash BFL, “Mochi”

I adore those bright, warm colors, which I spun up as another chain-ply (205 yards light worsted, out of 4 ounces). When I originally spun this up, I was thinking mittens, but lately I’ve been all about the socks, so that’s what I went with.

I decided to do the toe on this pair differently:

Basically, I pretended I was making a wee top-down hat. While I love the figure-eight cast-on I usually use to start a pair of toe-up socks, this cast-on was the simplest, fastest start I’ve ever had. Plus, I love the look of the toes. And the fit is perfect:

sock toes

Next, I decided to do some arch shaping, to accommodate my high, narrow arch. I’ve done this once before and was very pleased with the results. That was a few years back, but fortunately I made some notes on my Ravelry page that helped me get an idea of what I wanted to do.

arch shaping

Because I’m in love with an afterthought heel, that’s what I did for these socks. I knitted in a line of waste yarn where I wanted the heel to go, and then I just kept knitting a tube. Good grief that’s such an easy and fast way to make a sock. I put some of the brown parts of the yarn aside for the contrast heel, and then just kept knitting my tube.

When I got to where I thought I would need it, I started some calf shaping. And then before I knew it, I was done with the first sock, and I finished off with some brown for the cuff. I cast on for the second sock immediately, and when I was done with both tubes, I went back and added in the heels with the brown yarn.

I took this project with me on a winter campout with a Boy Scout troop my son is thinking of joining. I’ve got to say, sitting outside in the snow, watching the sun set, and knitting a sock is an experience I’d never had before. And I liked it!

It was a cold and snowy weekend, and we spent most of the afternoon and evening outside, around a campfire. Knitting a sock with an afterthought heel was basically the perfect project for this, because I was just knitting a simple tube. I continued knitting on into the night, because I didn’t really need to see what I was doing.

The thing is, I had intended to release this as a free pattern. And sitting outside in the cold, in the snow, in the dark, with the scouts, I totally failed to make notes about what I was doing. And now, more than a month later, I don’t know if I can remember exactly what I did. So at some point, I will need to study the sock and/or make another pair.

The truth is, I want to tweak the heel just a bit (this is another hat/bullseye heel like in the pair I showed you yesterday). So knitting another pair is probably the way to go anyway.

In the meantime, I have very happy feet (though I do need to back and close up that little gap at the heel on the right sock). (Also, I know more now about how to prevent that from happening in the first place, so I want to incorporate that knowledge in my next pair.)

sock blocking

I should add that this pair is cat-approved as well.

As with the pair I showed you yesterday, I managed to magically make a mostly matching set of stripes from one sock to the other:

That comes, I think, from how I spun the yarn. I split it as evenly as I could, straight down the middle, and then spun each half from the same end, and then chain-plied. I ended up with one skein of 101 yards and one skein of 104 yards, as close a matching set as I have ever managed to spin.

Maybe no one but me is interested in making handspun, toe-up, hat-toe, arch-shaped, afterthought heel, hat-heel, knee-high-ish socks. But they are fun to knit and a delight to wear, I assure you!

raveled