A strange thing happened to me the other day. I looked up the word "Horrific" in the dictionary and instead of finding a definition, found this picture...

Yes. These are my lovely most favorite socks that I have ever knit, Pomatomus.

And yes, there is now a big hole in them.

It is so so sad.

I cant believe this has happened! I have never gotten a hole in any of my socks before. I treat my hand knit socks soo carefully.

I wash them with special soap... Lay them out to dry... Fold them in a special way in my sock drawer...
AND...I hardly ever wear them around the house! I always take them off as soon as my shoes come off. They are meant purely to be worn with my special shoes and then back to the drawer they go.

So how does a hole of this magnitude happened with the level of care and attention my socks receive?

You'll never guess but it was the shoes.

My favorite pair of Mary Janes have a buckle that has come loose over time and now there is a little poky part where the buckle attaches to the strap. One day after work as I was slipping my shoes off the buckle snagged on a strand of yarn and well... the rest is history.

I am just really disappointed that this happened to my favorite pair. Especially in the lovely patterned part on the top! It seems that it would be so much easier to fix and hide if the hole was in the stockinette portion.

Why did this have to happen to the pair of socks that took me a month to knit.. and that I painstakingly swatched for in 3 different yarns? Why couldn't my ugly, saggy first pair of socks been snagged? WHY?!?

I am not sure how to fix it. Does anyone have any good ideas for me?

Done!!!

These have been off the needles for a day or two now. I really raced through that second sock because I have a few other sock patterns that I desperately want to start.

I'm on a "knee-high sock kick" right now.

This pattern is the most complicated sock that I have knit to date. It isn't HARD, just one of the patterns where you have to pay attention every row. On the second sock, though I had chart A pretty much memorized and only had to look down occasionally to make sure that I was still on track.

My sister-in-law is making these same socks and when she finished her first, we both noticed how funny lookin the toe was. The pattern is written to include this ugly, pointy, squared off toe that really takes away from the beauty of the sock. I worked a standard rounded toe on my pair, and I think that it looks alot better.

This is what I did:

TOE:
Work decreases at stated in pattern until you have 64 stitches total.

Round 1: k all sts.
Round 2: Needle 1- k1, ssk, k to last 3 sts , k2tog, k1
Needle 2- k1, ssk, k to end
Needle 3- k to last 3 sts, k2tog, k1
(4 sts decreased)

Repeat these last 2 rounds until 32 sts remain. Then work just Round 2 until 12 sts remain. Slip sts from needle 2 onto needle 3, and graft the stitches together using kitchener stitch.

I really am obsessed with how cute handknit socks look with a good pair of Mary Janes. I want to extend my sock wardrobe to have a different color sock for every outfit.

One down! One to go!

This sock pattern is apparently not for the faint of heart because several knitters in the Pomatomus Sock knit-a-long have dropped out!

It is a time consuming pattern, but oh so worth it!

That being said, I still took precautions and cast on for sock #2 right away

to prevent a serious case of

"second sock syndrome" from setting in.

sooooo pretty...

I fell in love with the Pomatomus sock pattern a long time ago so I was super excited when I found out that The Scarlet Skein would be doing the Pomatomus Sock for the next Knit-A-Long! We are meeting either Tuesdays or Wednesdays through the months of June and July to work on this sock together.

Now this would be all fine and good if only I could get this stupid sock started!

This is the first time I cast on. I loved the look and feel of this Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Sock yarn but this colorway that I chose, although lovely, was just not right for this pattern.

Too busy.

Second attempt. Same yarn, different colorway.

I think that it was better than the first. The colors are more tonal, but not tonal enough. I was afraid that you would only be able to see the color striping and not the pattern stitch itself.

Arrgghhhh......

So I dug through the stash, and look at what I found! Cherry Tree Hill Supersock yarn from a purchase last summer!

I've decided that I like this the best out of the the three. I'm usually not a royal blue/purple type of gal, but I think that the color variations do not overwhelm the pattern and also the color keeps to the aquatic theme.

Don't you think it looks like fish scales?

Finally I'm happy and I can get knitting on this thing.

Lesson Learned: Look in your stash first!!!