Halfway there

There is it. My first ever Cookie A sock. I still need to weave in the ends (I wish there was a end-weaving-in fairy who just did that for me) but it's off the needles and the second one is started. This is much nicer yarn that what I used for my first two pairs of socks. I couldn't resist trying on the sock even before I had it off the needles and it was amazing. I love how it fits and I love the feel of the yarn.

There have been a few things of note with this sock. First off, I did end up frogging the sock after the last post. I wasn't happy with it because I was over thinking the increase row. It was special.

Next, the needle holding the instep stitches broke. I nearly cried. I was about halfway through the heel flap and didn't want to have to frog it to get back to these rows to fix them. Thankfully I didn't have to do that. Instead, I put the fallen stitches onto an extra needle. Next, I worked each stitch individually back up. I was worried about this as there are decreases in the pattern section. Of course, it figures that it would break on one of those instead of anywhere else. Luckily, it's a really simple pattern of 8 rows, so as long as I knew which row I was in (which was easy with how the pattern is worked), I knew what to do with each stitch. It took about 20 minutes but I was able to fix it. I learned from the sock club forum to put those stitches that aren't being worked onto a circular needle. That way I can't break another needle. I will definitely be doing that for this second sock.

On the plus side, I love how Cookie instructs the heel. Since it's the same for each size, instead of counting stitches, so tells you to work until the gap when turning the heel. This is how I've done it in the past though the patterns always had counting (p4, p2tog, p1 turn, k5, k2tog, k1, turn, etc.) and I would get hung up on the counting and worry that I was doing something wrong. Some part of me felt really good to see Cookie write out what I had discovered, almost like I had an "in" on how "real" sock knitters think. It's silly but it did feel nice. The heel was the easiest to turn that I've done. Maybe it's because it's the 5th heel I've done. Maybe it's the yarn. I'm not certain. What I do know is that I really enjoyed and didn't fret at all about it. On both previous pairs of socks, I've fretted that things wouldn't turn out right because I was picking up extra stitches to close any gap along the slipped stitches edges. This pattern had me making a stitch on each side instead. Genius!

So now I've started the second sock. I'm almost done with the first repeat of the pattern. It's much easier now that I've gotten use to the pattern. It's amazing how easy it is. When I started the first sock, I felt flustered and tense because I didn't want to mess it up. Now that I have a beautiful, finished sock, I feel much more relaxed. This project is definitely giving me confidence in my knitting skills. I think I'll be making this sock again in the future. It's been such a joy.