Happy Socktoberfest!

Socktoberfest is a wonderful way to celebrate one of my favorite months of the year! (December is my true favorite month, but that's because it holds my birthday...) It's already October 4th and I haven't discussed sock knitting at all, nor have I started knitting a sock. So I figured that I would commence the celebration on yogurt & granola with a pictorial history of my sock knitting achievements. Don't get too comfy here, it's a short history!

The celebration begins with these very festive socks - the first "socks" I ever knit. Left to right: Mommy's, Jackson's, Daddy's. Jackson's isn't blocked and doesn't have a flannel lining (I wanted these to really be able to hold some good loot from Santa) or velvet loop yet. This will be his first Christmas! (I was lucky to just finish the knitting before he was born!) If you look closely at these in person (and if you are a Knitter), you might be able to tell which was knit first, second, last since I had no idea what I was doing with the after-thought heel or Kitchener stitch at the beginning. I like to think that you can't tell on the Web though. Can you?(I even bought enough of this yarn to make one for Jackson's yet-to-be-conceived sibling. Am I a planner, or what?)

These are the first pair of sock socks that I ever knit. And the only pair. I've been knitting for almost six years now but only just got into socks about two years ago. So...they're okay. Just okay. I got way bored knitting the cuff and wanted to get to the "interesting" stuff too fast, which is why they are a little...uh...short. They're a bit scratchy too. I hardly ever wear them. Oh well, knit and learn!Dan hates it when I say this, but I have to tell the world that this is self-striping yarn (you Knitters knew that). It's very cool yarn that does all of this patterning on its own. It makes the socks look difficult, but you're really just knitting along with one skein of yarn the whole time!

Then there's this collection of baby booties and sock-yarn-to-be-knit. The little booties with the orange are knit from the leftover of my sock yarn (because I had lots of leftover since I made them too short) and Jackson used to wear these all the time. I love how I was able to mess with the colors to get it to work out like that on the instep. I also love the little orange stripe that ended up on the bottom of each one!
I just knit the blue bootie for him recently thinking that it would fit his huge foot now, but I overshot. Oh well, the nice thing about knitting something too big for a kid is that they WILL grow into it. I'm not diving right into the second one just yet. What's the rush since he won't be wearing it for a while? (Now would be a good time to take bets as to whether I'll ever actually make the second one...)

The skein of yarn is just a good old sock yarn that I bought a few years ago but haven't started yet. Socktoberfest would be a fine time to start, don't you think? But I don't know what pattern to use. I think I want to start toe-up socks this time but I'm not a fan of the crochet-cast-on. Mama Grouch tells me that it's not hard and I should just do it...but I'm stubborn. I knit, I don't crochet. Is that awful? Tell me what pattern you like the best and why. I'm not a super experienced sock-knitter, but I think I can say that I'm an experienced enough Knitter to be able to try just about anything. (Yet, why haven't I done cables yet?...)

I'm also super excited about the Hot Socks Swap that just closed on October 1st. The person who is getting a package from me is in Norway and blogs here and knits some really cool things. (The soccer, I mean, "football" sweater is awesome...totally awesome.) I just went out and picked up the stuff for her package today, though I'm still waiting on one thing. If you're reading this, Hege, I hope to send it off this weekend! I don't know who has my name and I can't wait to find out! Hopefully, I'll have some very cool sock yarn from my swap buddy before Socktoberfest is over.

Happy Socktoberfest everybody! May your toes always be warm.