Sample Adventures

I sat down last week and tried to make a reasonable schedule for the Christmas knitting. It seemed totally do-able and while the husband was at work, I managed to stay on schedule just fine. Then the weekend happened. He was off on Saturday and Sunday (his office is always closed on Sundays but that's not my point) and managed to think he should be fed 3 times a day! All that cooking and subsequent cleaning up after the cooking seriously cut into the knitting time and I fell behind.


After taking yesterday (the whole day) and this morning to really push it and try to get caught up again, I am feeling like I could possibly be able to get caught up and keep moving it along. What made me feel like it was still possible to get caught up?
I finished the sample socks!

I really think they turned out so lovely and I even braved the ridiculous cold to take lovely photos of them.
Although they are lovely and squishy and nice I'm very happy to have finished them. Let's discuss the reasons why I'm so happy to have them finished.
1. Pressure, the yarn arrived a bit late (the fault of the Post office and winter storms, not the sender in any way) and that meant the time I thought I'd have to knit it was significantly shorter and I wanted to make sure it was done in plenty of time.
2. I cable without a cable needle. Especially with these small one over one cables it just seems silly and super slow to use a cable needle. That does not mean I cable without a cable needle well and I often get very frustrated with the stitches not wanting to cable at all.
3. I knit the first leg as directed in the pattern then the heel and almost entire foot. Then I tried on the sock and realized that the leg was not even close to the 6 inches the pattern called for. It was barely 5 inches. That meant I had to rip back, add length to the leg then reknit the heel and foot. That means I knit the second half of the first sock twice which felt sort of like knitting the first sock twice. That means that I was thoroughly done with the pattern by the time I was done with the first sock, let alone the second sock!

4. The aforementioned fortitude it took to knit the second sock and get it done means the other knitting had been put on the back burner and there's a largish deadline for that coming up in about 15 days.
They are done and absolutely beautiful though! All extra details about changes I made to the pattern and other notes can be found on my project page here. 

Whew, now they are done and I can get them mailed then back to that knitting with the largish deadline.
Have a grand adventure lovely socks and I'll see you soon!