Week 1--Socks for The Boy

I am off on a business trip that will involve many hours of airplane travel. This is actually how I got started knitting socks.  Though I have knitted everything else since I was about 7 years old, I always resisted socks, though I am not sure why.  Then I started traveling frequently and decided to pull out my knitting again after many years of mainly sewing and crochet, and found that socks were the perfect take-along project for a business trip.  All of those snippets of time wasted waiting to board, waiting to take off, waiting to land when you cannot use your computer can be used to add several inches at a time to a sock project.

I realize to meet my rather ambitious goal I will have to do a combination of what I call "utility socks"--basic ribbed or knit socks with no special or difficult stitches--that go very quickly with more elaborate projects.  I decided to start with one of these to make sure I meet my goals in the early weeks.

About 2 years ago, I was visiting my family for the holidays and I brought along some knee socks I was finishing up.  My nephew, then five, kept watching me knit and was pretty entranced.  He asked if I would make him a pair of socks--in orange, no less--which I happily did the next month.  Well, the boy (we have called him that since he was young since he has two older sisters) loved those socks.  So much so, that he wore them day and night for a year.  Last summer when I was visiting, he brought me the socks to show me the holes that had developed.  I offered to patch them, but he very cleverly suggested that he just needed a new pair since the old ones really didn't fit over his heels without trouble any more.

So my first project will be socks for The Boy.  I am using Lang Jawoll Aktion, my fav sock yarn. I have found Lang wears like iron, and the color and yarn hold up to many washings without fading or pilling, and the reinforcement thread really does help with the wear.  In fact, The Boy's first pair wore holes just where the reinforced portion met the non-reinforced portion at the ball of the foot.

Simple top-down ribbed socks in a basic stitch.  One sock completed, the second sock a little past halfway.  Will add pics tomorrow.