Sprinkles

This post is long overdue. As I was decreasing the toes on my BIL's socks, I realized that I was jealous of these ones too. I knew the next on my list of Christmas knitting* were Hubby's socks, but I really want a pair of my own. I decided it was time for a sit down with Hubby. Being the perceptive and incredibly smart man that he is, before I could even get my thoughts out, he told me that I deserve a pair of socks and that I should make mine first. How can you not love that?

These socks started 4 months ago. KnitPicks announced that they were releasing new sock yarn for fall. I still wasn't a successful sock knitter so I normally wouldn't be tempted, but this stuff is called Imagination and the colorways are named after all sorts of fun fairytale stuff. I knew I needed the yarn for the Christmas socks so I decided to wait and spoil myself with a little bit of this too. I was I picked up a couple skeins of Gingerbread House and Seven Dwarfs. Excited about my self indulgence, I started searching sock patterns and I came across Tuscany. I was full of inspiration!
This pattern:
With this yarn:

Filled my head with visions of cupcakes and sprinkles. My heart was set on some fantastically sweet socks.

I cast on as soon as I was done with the Earl Gray socks. Then, I immediately ripped it out and completely changed up the pattern. First, I didn't like the gauge of the pattern as much as the socks I've been working on lately so I upped the number of stitches to a variable of 8 that was closer to what I've been working with. Second, I realized that sprinkle placement is pretty chaotic and that I didn't want them to be quite as orderly as they are in the pattern picture. Every other pattern repeat I decided to offset by two stitches. It is not much, and it is far from orderly, but I'm happy with the results. Finally, since I have a completely different number of stitches than the pattern recommends, I had to improvise a heel from a different sock pattern. I'll probably have to do the same with the toe but I haven't gotten that far yet. (If you asked me four months ago, there is no way I could have predicted that I'd be improvising heels and toes!) Here is how all of my adjustments are turning out:
I am pretty smitten with them.




*Hubby's side of the family is visiting us for Thanksgiving, so we'll actually be celebrating Christmas this month instead of next. This is why I've been working so diligently on my Christmas knitting. I must admit it does feel kind of nice to be finishing mine up as everyone writes about beginning theirs.