Summer socks

Oh my, I'm in the mood for knitting socks.

What: Chrysanthemum frutescens / Hunter Hammersen
How: Circular needle 2.25 mm
From: Hedgehog Fibres Sock, 58 g

In the past few years, I've been sitting in the great hall of our university, listening to my colleagues dissertations. Since it's a very formal work thing, I haven't been knitting while there. However, this time it was my dear friend's turn to defend her thesis. And after reading it through and realizing, I wouldn't understand a word of the defense, I was pardoned and got a permission to take my needles with me.

I knew I needed something easy and small. Something that doesn't make a sound. And of course, as I didn't pick a project the night before, I was in a bit of a hurry in the morning. So, I took with me the only caked sock yarn in my stash and the needles to go with it. I had time to pick out a pattern later.

Oh well. This pattern has been in my Ravelry queue for several years but it's nothing close to being simple and easy. Nevertheless, I chose it because it was high time to shorten my queue.

This daisy-inspired sock pattern is a part of Hunter Hammersen's first Knitter's curiosity cabinet e-book. (And yes, I do realize, these aren't daisies in the pics.) The socks are knitted cuff down. First, you make a folded brim and then you knit beautiful lace that is much easier than it looks. I learned the pattern repeat quickly. The heel is worked with slipped stitches but these heels are purls instead of knitted stitches and it makes for a fun texture. The pattern suggests to make these rather short legs. At first, I thought it to be a silly idea but then I realized, I don't have any woolly summer socks. I mean, short legs might work well for warmer weather. And so I did as the pattern suggested.

The pattern called for provisional cast on but I thought it was unnecessary. As long as you cast on loosely, there's no need for the provisional cast on. You can just pick up stitches from the CO edge one at a time. Also, I made an extra half repeat of the lace pattern on the foot which is why there are knitted stitches at a different spot than in the pattern pics. But I don't mind. I like it this way as well. Otherwise there would've been an awful lot purled stitches.

In the end the difficult sock pattern I chose, turned out to be an easy one. Also, to top it all off, the dissertation was very audience friendly despite of the difficult topic and I was very glad the socks didn't require much attention.