I did it! I finished knitting my very first pair of argyle socks! I told you that I sort of goofed the second sock a bit. Well, that made it sort of hard to embroider straight white lines, so there are a few places on the second sock where the lines don’t quite meet up. By a long shot. And it wasn’t because of the crappy beer either (which, incidentally gave me a headache and prevented me from doing any embroidering whatsoever… ).

But, as we say in these parts, they pass the galloping horse test–that is, if you were galloping by on a horse, wearing your item in question, would someone notice any mistakes? And really, if anyone is getting that close to my husbands ankles, we’ve got bigger things to worry about.

This evening, while The Man was watching, I finished knitting his argyle socks. Surprise Honey! These are actually for you, so you had better act surprised when you pull them out of your stocking on Christmas morning. I haven’t embroidered the white lines on the second sock yet. It was kind of a pain to embroider around all of the loose ends on the first sock, so I figure I’ll weave all the ends in now, before I embroider the second one. Unfortunately all we have to drink is this crappy beer, but I’m drinking it anyway in the hope that it will make weaving in the yarn ends more fun. If that’s possible.

The second sock was in many ways easier than the first. I did have some trouble with the diamonds this time, but it was totally user error, and I managed to fudge it. I did figure out that I’d been slipping stitches wrong on the first sock, which resulted in the not quite perfect color change (you can see here that the right side of the diamond transitions from black to brown seamlessly, while the left side has a little blip). But I had much more confidence with the second sock, so what took me almost six months of tentative knitting on the first sock, took me only three days of gung-ho knitting on the mate. Knitting after the kids and husband went to bed helped a lot, too.

The pattern I used for these socks is free here. I used size 0 (2mm) bamboo double pointed needles, and Wildfoote sock yarn by Brown Sheep Company. It’s 75% washable wool/25% nylon.

A word of warning: this isn’t a straight forward pattern, but a formula based on measurements and your gauge. Because of that, the directions can seem a bit disjointed at times, since they’re written in modules. Also, I prefer the hourglass heel directions given in my favorite sock knitting book, The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, by Lynne Vogel. I did the first heel according to the formula directions, but went back to my preferred method for the second heel.

Well now, ain’t that swell? I added the duplicate stitch stripes (diamonds? crosshairs?), and I’m in love with these socks all over again. They just evoke bowling and ham dinner and a decanter full of bourbon. Or maybe that’s just me. Today, after I tackle the kitchen and find the size 0 DPN I misplaced, I’ll start on the mate.

Since The Man was in the field all week, it was a perfect opportunity for me to work on his “big” Christmas present–Argyle socks. (I can safely tell you about them, because I know he doesn’t read this, and he knows, vaguely, that I’ve been working on them anyway…) I have one nearly finished. Erik came home last night, finally, only to reveal that he had duty today. Sooo… I’ll spend this morning unknitting a few rows from the toe of the sock, since I got a little carried away. Then hopefully I’ll have a chance to get a good start on the mate.