New Socks

I finally finished my latest pair of socks. And here they are. I had scheduled about two weeks to get them done - one week per sock. But somewhere along the foot, after the decreases for the gusset, I got into this whole "man I'm tired of knitting these socks" attitude. It felt like I was knitting cobwebs on size 000 needles. Then I decided to suck it up and just finish them and after a couple of repeats, they were ready for the toe. The whole project took about three and a half weeks with a nice break toward the end. I could have made the two week goal if I had tried. Socks with contrasting toes and heels have always had a sort of exotic feel to me, like the socks that monkey dolls are made of. I guess it comes from growing up in the suburbs and only wearing tube socks and nylon socks that you get in twelve packs. But the thing with having big feet is that I never know if I'm going to have enough yarn, so I like to extend it a bit by doing the heel and toe in this charcoal gray wool. Plus I like a little more length in the leg. Here's a closeup of the pattern. Click the picture and you can see it even better!
I got into a little bit of trouble on Ravelry when I said that I was concerned that the pattern would be too "faggy." A guy got on me about that and I changed it. (He is a guy just that much older than me to whom "faggy" means something different. I came of age when we threw that term around all the time and the meaning sort of got shifted. "Is this shirt faggy?" "Yeah, a little." "Faggy good or faggy bad?") The thing I was concerned about was wearing what might look like lace socks. (I don't want to wear lace socks.) Turns out they're not bad at all. A little breezy, but they're probably good for the summer.

Of course Fred thinks that they're so crazy that they should just be house socks. We're going to the ballet tonight and I'm wearing them. They're fresh washed and begging to be worn.