Rubbish blogger

Gosh, I've been a bad blogger. I have left the poor blog unattended for far too long. Still, I'm back now. 

The inspiration for coming back is partly a lot of the wonderful blogs I read regularly, and partly a visit I made to Chester this weekend. Aimee from a podcast I listen to, Knit, Spin, Cake, and Nic from the Yarns From The Plain podcast had organised a retreat. I didn't go to the retreat but I did go over and meet with them on the Saturday, and had a wonderful time. It led me to thinkng about knitters, and about community, and about trying to be less shy with other knitters, and less scared of the community aspects of knitting. So, I reatart the blog. 

In terms of what I have been knitting, it felt for a while as if I was knitting and knitting and knitting and getting nothing finished. I hate that feeling - it frustrates me no end. But I think I've reached a point with my WIPs where I am starting to finish some significant things, and that feels better. 

I won't post about everything now, I will leave some things for future posts (means there are more likely to be future posts!) but I would like to post about socks. 

Last year, I made Ben some secret Chrostmas socks, and he was really pleased. I was pleased. Everyone was pleased. 

With that much being pleased, I decided to do the whole thing again. At Yarndale with the help of some friends I covertly purchased some yarn (Laal Bear) and cast in with loads of time. So I thought. 

For those who don't know Ben, he is 6'6 and wears a size 13 shoe. This means there are some patterns I've tried for him where one skein of yarn just wasn't enough (this with men's socks is why Jon from easyknits started the big boy range of yarns in 150g skeins). So I bought two skeins. 

Remember, I had loads and loads of time. Months, in fact. 

So I decided to knit each sock out of a whole skein, each skein being 'only' 333yds. 

Ben had also requested at some point that I knit him socks with a princess sole. I felt that these super secret Christmas socks would be a great place to do that. 

I cast on. I knit and knit. I remembered that I hate purling on DPNs. And I knit. 

I hadn't taken into consideration that my job allows me much less knitting time on my commute now. I hadn't taken into consideration the yards and yards of 2x2 rib that I think honestly sapped my soul. 

For Christmas, Ben got a sock and a toe. 

I finally finished the Super Socks of Doom in the middle of February. 

The colour is less accurate in this picture. But they are huge. And he loves them. 

I'm at knit night tonight, and my travel project? Another pair of socks for Ben. I must be some kind of sucker.