Celestial Socks - Done!

While the first sock took a very long time to complete (about 20 months), the second sock only took me three days.  I will confess that I did not actually count the stitches that I picked up along the side of the gusset, I just decreased until I was back to 34 stitches for that needle.  I did use a row counter to keep track of how many rows I knit on the first sock so that I could match with the second, but I also counted the repeats of the pattern on the top of the foot, because sometimes I just forgot to click the row counter.  I decreased every other round for the toes until I had 12 stitches left (the pattern had you decrease every other row, and then every row, until 4 stitches remained) and then grafted to close up the hole.  I am well pleased with the fit.

Pattern:  Celestial Socks by Melanie Gibbons

Yarn:  1 Akasha Zeropoint Colorworks SW, N Quasi-Solido Sock

Needle:  US 1 (2.25 mm)

Celestial Socks - One Sock Done!

I started this sock back in February of 2021 - February 15, 2021 - according to the project page.  The pattern has only one size, and I had not gotten very far on the cuff before I realized that the size was simply too small for me.  I could barely fit the cuff around my ankle.  I put the project in time out while I worked on and finished some other things (36 other things, to be exact) and pondered how I wanted to approach this problem.  I considered changing the pattern to work toe up instead of cuff down, as then I would be able to adjust the pattern on the fly, but I really just did not feel like making that big of a modification.  Finally, this past Monday I was looking around for something to knit and I thought I would pull this one back out of the WIP pile.  I decided to take some measurements of my ankle and calf and just cast on more stitches at the start.

I quickly determined that I needed a 10” circumference at the top of the sock and an 8.5” circumference at my ankle.  I also decided that the length of the cuff for that stretch of my leg needed to be 4 repeats of the pattern, plus the 12 rows of the ribbing.  But now I had to decide what to do about the patterning.  Did I expand the patterning to fill up those extra 16 stitches?  Create some cable pattern that would transform into the original cable?  Expand the panel of star stitches?  In the end I decided on simple.  Both the cable and the star stitch are a bit of a pain to work in this sock yarn, and I decided I just didn’t want the extra hassle, so I just filled in those stitches with extra stockinette.  I did chart the pattern with the decreases, just to make it easier for me to work.  After I finished the decreases I worked an additional repeat before I started the heel flap.

My modifications resulted in 34 stitches per needle when I reached the cuff, as opposed to 32, but the modifications to the heel and gusset were straight forward.  I did work 34 rows for the heel flap, instead of 32, and decreased back down to 34 stitches when working the gusset.  I stopped the toe decreases when I had 12 stitches on each of my needles and Kitchener stitched them closed.

I am pretty well pleased with the fit.  Looking back in my projects on Ravelry, the last time I knit socks was back in 2017, but I wore a pair of my hand knit socks two weeks ago when we were going out to dinner with friends and family and remembered just how nice they are to wear.

Pattern:  Celestial Socks by Melanie Gibbons

Yarn:  1 Akasha Zeropoint Colorworks SW, N Quasi-Solido Sock

Needle:  US 1 (2.25 mm)