Hospital Socks

Apparently I am rambling tonight...

Pattern: Hospital socks (my ravelry project) Ha. I went to go find this pattern in my blog archives and realized that I've always done these plain socks toe up so I guess this is a new one.
Materials: Most of two skeins of Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett in reds/browns/oranges. I'm sure there is a name and number but I'm not sure what it is. If you are desperate to know please ask and then I'll go see if I can find a yarn band.
Made for: me
Needle: US1.5 40" Addi Turbo Circular
Start Date: 3 June 2009
Completion Date: 6 June 2009
Size: 11m

Notes: Just a plain sock. I originally cast these on at the hospital toe-up. I knit that for a bit and then decided that I didn't like it. For whatever reason. I don't think it was a real reason. Just me being persnickety. So I recast on top down.

Mostly this paragraph is for me to refer to later but it is a very sketchy pattern. If you guys want a more detailed pattern I can do that but I know there are TONS of plain sock patterns out there. I started with 64 stitches in a ribbed cast on to knit k2p2 for 25 rows. I knit 25 rows in stocking stitch and decreased 4 stitches on the 26th row. Then I knit 24 more rows. I knit the heel flap in slipped stitch over 30 stitches starting with a purl row. I knit sl,k1 row followed by a purl row for 36 rows. Turned the heel and then picked up all the stitches along the flap and knit down to the toe. Just a basic toe down to twelve stitches. Kitchener.

One thing that I noticed when I wrote the paragraph above is that my ribbing for plain socks is almost always 1/3 of the number of rows I use for the sock leg. I like that. Its nice and comfortable. It stays up always no matter how tall I make the sock or how loose it happens to be. Also I don't usually decrease the leg at all but these were kind of loose. I actually think these horizontal stripes are making my ankles look really nice. Not chubby like I would normally expect. This is good because I have one more striped sock on the needles plus the pair after is planned to be stripey.

Oh I also REALLY liked this yarn. Its pretty thick and cushy and soft on my feet. I also adore these colors. Its not as bright as anything else I'm working on but it made me really happy while platelet loading. I haven't knit much with any of the balled (as opposed to skeined) sock yarns just one pair of Step socks for Chris when I first started knitting socks. Think Opal, Austermann, or On-Line type yarns when I say balled yarns. Those ones that stripe with patterns and crazy-ness like Dee has all the time look pretty cool. I'm really liking this stripey crazy-ness and am happy to have some Austermann Step that definitely stripes and some On-line from Robyn (that I'm not actually sure what will do) that I'm excited to try now. Sometime after I knit my stash down I'll try some of the other types like this too.

Other then I knit these at the hospital on surgery day there really isn't anything special about these. I did get some dog attention from Abby, but Gus was having none of it and stayed on the other side of the yard. He's more concerned that the armadillo is back this summer. (If you click his picture he's almost big enough to see way over there.)