utterly socktastic!

pattern: Lichen Ribbed Socks, from Knitting Vintage Socks
designer: part Nancy Bush, part my own fiddling and fine-tuning
yarn: Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop in Lucy In the Skies
needles: Addi US#1 circs (magic loop it, baby!)
modifications: knit over 64 stitches (instead of 60 as pattern calls for), eye of partridge heel and round toe (instead of Welsh Heel and Star Toe of Three Points)

I love these socks. I am wearing them right now, and good lord, are they cozy. I love how they do not match perfectly, yet there's no denying that they are a pair. Ahhhh, the beauty of knitting with handspun yarn! As a child, I had this kinda O.C.D. habit of touching anything that I thought was pretty because somehow, in my mind, touching it, absorbing its tactile qualities as well as the visual somehow helped to commit said item to my memory. I would stealthily touch every flower that struck my fancy at the florist, every button that I thought was cute at the fabric shop, every plush animal I fell in love with at the toy store. I would run my fingers across photos in books and magazines, "zapping" images into my memory. Yeah, I was a strange kid. Funny how knitting with wonderfully soft yarns in gorgeous colors plays into that for me; as I knit with this, I felt like I was somehow reading a code that I was committing to memory, like memorizing music notes, absorbing both the color and the texture on several levels. Okay, so maybe I'm still weird like that, not that I go around "zapping" things anymore. Anyhoo, check out the heel on these puppies, because I am so happy with them:

Eye of Partridge heels for everyone!