Another month almost gone, another pair of socks finished. Having finished a pair of socks in the shortest month of the year, amidst other distractions and projects, I feel extra good about this goal right now.
February’s socks were Thelonious by Cookie A. I’d loved these socks since I first came across them on Cookie’s site, and then they were one of the patterns included in Knit. Sock. Love. I was so excited! Finally, I had the pattern and I could make a pair myself. Luck would have it that they would be the second pair of socks the RNG chose for my Self-Imposed Sock Club (to borrow a phrase from the Yarn Harlot).
I loved this pattern. One of the things that Cookie tries to do with her patterns, and one of the reason why I love her design aesthetic, is that she’s very conscious about the flow of the pattern. If you look at the way she does most of the cuff ribbings of her sock patterns, they lead directly into the main body pattern, and you can see how the lace panel starts right from the beginning, in a modification of the ribbing around the rest of the leg.
These were actually a fairly quick knit, if you add together all the time that I actually spent knitting them and not putzing around with other projects (or just not knitting at all). The pattern repeat is easily memorizable, and I actually knit the second sock almost entirely from memory. That’s another beautiful thing about Cookie’s patterns; sometimes they look kind of intense, but they’re still good “TV Knitting.”
Some people have mentioned that they don’t get lacy socks, because they wouldn’t be warm. Not so, my friends. It snowed all day yesterday up here in Fort Collins. The snow is melting off today, but it’s still been fairly cool and I’ve been walking around town wearing my “Easter Egg shoes” and lacy socks and my feet are totally warm.
So there.
Are you playing along with the 12 pairs challenge? How are your February socks coming? What are you knitting this weekend?
[…] 09. Thelonius in Louet Gems Fingering, Cranberry February’s socks, done! […]
those are beautiful! Nicely done, sweets.
I’m knitting a pair of easy fingerless gloves (just basic rib-pattern) for a friend. Might make a second pair, otherwise I’m not sure yet.
Thanks! That’s really nice of you to make gloves for your friend. 😀
Very hot socks! Love the sock/shoe combo.
Thank you! 😀
They look wonderful! One of these days, I will knit a Cookie A pattern all the way through…one of these days!
Haha what’s stopped you so far? Did you just get buried in WIPs?
I started a pair of Monkeys but they are pooling terribly so need to be ripped out. Most of her pattern repeats are too long for me to memorize–if I need to look at the pattern, I can’t take it on the bus, so it doesn’t get done. (c.f. http://www.ravelry.com/projects/ashpags/flame-chevron-scarf)
See, this is one of the things that really pissed me off about that damned Destroyed Cowl. I knit my second Thelonious sock entirely from memory. Pattern repeats, traveling configuration, four different charts, heel flap, everything. I checked the pattern maybe twice to make sure I had remembered correctly. And then this stupid stockinette strip totally made me feel like crap (okay I was already feeling like crap, it just exacerbated the situation).
Maybe start with her Hedera pattern–the pattern repeats are (I think) four (maybe six) rows long, and it’s pretty easy to pick up on the pattern as you’re going along.
The Hederas are cute! I can handle four rows…I think/hope!
[…] you might have seen over the weekend, I finished my second of a hopeful twelve pairs of socks for the year. These socks should not have taken as long as they […]
[…] little bit of a sucker for socks with traveling stitches (see Cookie A’s Thelonius socks, aka February’s finished socks). So I’m seriously digging these Nathania socks by Elke Becker, with the simple stockinette […]
[…] love Cookie A’s socks. I knit Thelonius earlier this year, and Monkey, Pomatomus, Sunshine, Hedera, and BFF in the past, so it’s […]