WIP: Christmas Socks

I hope all of you enjoyed a wonderful Christmas!  I finished my MIL's Christmas socks (aka "Hawkeye Socks") the day before Christmas Eve. It was such a relief to get it done the day before all of the festivities began.

Project: Ribbed Hawkeye Socks

Yarn: KUAS fingering weight yarn in a superwash merino blend (colorway "Bleed in Black & Gold")

Needles: size US2

Started: not telling!          Finished: December 23rd, 2014

Specs: 64 sts, 8'' leg, size US 7.5 women's shoe

Blog Posts: Post 1    Post 2

 I dyed this yarn a long time ago in the colorway "Bleed in Black & Gold." That silly colorway name is a slogan from the University of Iowa for their football team, the Hawkeyes, who bleed in black and gold. Not only did my husband and I graduate from that college, but so did his parents. So we are all big Hawkeye fans.

I realize that ribbing is not the most effective way to display striped or variegated colorways, but I was going more for function than ascetics. I wanted to make sure that it fit really well, since some socks have a tendency to stretch out with time.

Here's another example of packaging hand-knits. Joe and I tried to calculate how many stitches went into making this pair of socks (and the result makes me a little sick to my stomach): approx. 24,500 stitches. If you are going to spend that much time knitting them, fancy up the packaging.

I included a nice instruction care card (with a plea to hand-wash and to never let this sock so much as look at a dyer unless you want it to fit my toddler's feet), and also included a little wool-wash sample. She was pleasantly surprised. Well, she should be, since she asked for it last Christmas, and that never happened. Ha ha ha...whoops. What was I supposed to do, give her one sock?

I'll miss these little buggers. I was contemplating finishing them up "magic loop" style, but decided against it. I have another pair (yes, an actual pair running to avoid secondsockities) half done from the Ice Age era, and I'll probably slide them onto a circular needle and try them two at a time.

 My husband was putting the boys down when I finished the last toe, and came down surprised to see me wearing them. He was wondering if would finish them in time with all of the happenings going on this particular season. I pretended for a couple of minutes that they were mine. :)