Adirondack Socks

If you can't tell by that picture, I am seriously in love with these socks. Or at least, I seriously enjoyed making these socks. It's a combination of lovely wool, interesting pattern and a sunny day.

I will start with the wool. It was much anticipated and initially somewhat disappointing, but crocheting with it was heaven. Much anticipated because I ordered it from USA (along with special Madelinetosh for Mum's Mother's Day present), and ordered it to college not home. It did not take three weeks to arrive, it took longer - I went home for the holidays, expecting to pick it up when I returned in the middle of April. Then college forwarded the customs charges for the package. Ah. Forgot about that. Mild panic as I thought that I would be unable to get to the post office in college town to pay. Then realised I could pay online. Thought nothing of it. Then the package arrived at home - I love college for forwarding it.

I thought I had ordered Schoppel Wolle Zauberball 1564 not Crazy Zauberball. So my immediate thought on opening the package was slight disappointment. This was not pure rainbows. This was 2 ply of rainbows, mixed together to make some lovely colours (see green, red, orange on left foot below) and other combinations that I am not so fond of (see the black mixes on the right foot below). I'm not sure what happened, but the online order was for Crazy Zauberball, so it seems like I was the one to make the mistake. Hmph.

However, crocheting with the yarn removed my misgivings. Oh so lovely and soft (my last project was with mercerised cotton, this wool-nylon was a blessed relief). And watching colours change is fascinating, especially at the end of left sock where it all became like a rainbow rather than a mix. So warm as well, to wear. Home is freezy at the moment and I've been wearing them all day and its kept my toes rather toasty.

Onto the pattern. Adirondack Socks by Patsy Harbor. I keep spelling Adirondack wrong. In my head, they are Rainbow socks because I can actually spell that. A quick explanation of what I think a good pattern consists of: easy to follow, good results, teaches something new. This pattern did all of that. In bucket loads. Very easy to follow, I ripped back once, and that was only because I had made right sock a little short to ensure that I had enough yarn for left sock. When I found that I had plenty left over from the second sock, then I ripped back the end of first sock and made it a little longer. So that ripping back was not the pattern's fault, but due to my own conservativeness. Teaches something new - this pattern actually taught me three new stitches - extended single crochet, back-post double crochet (that was really a duh! moment, seeing as I couldn't work out how front and back were different until watching a youtube video), and foundation double crochet - which I hadn't got round to learning through my own laziness. I made the middle size as I was using a 3mm hook (that was the only 3-- mm size that I could find in my special crochet hook tin), and had no problems.

Sunny day is somewhat self-explanatory. It's been raining for the past week, which meant that there wasn't enough light to adequately photograph my first ever pair of socks (not quite as pretty as these). I certainly took advantage of the sun, lying on the patio with my legs in the air to get these photos, and then pretending to take pictures of flowers when my neighbour came out her back door.

Apologies for not posting since December. I was making the mega-cardigan Lila, which I have yet to photograph, then a series of gifts for other people that were gone before photos could be taken.