Lacy Heart Socks

I always mean what I say, and my friends do know this...so was not surprised when Kay took me at my word when I offered to knit her a second pair of socks.  Her husband had been teasing her that he would have to pull her socks off her and wash them in the night and then return them, as they do with their grand children's snuggly toys!  She loves to wear the pair I knitted for her recently in the evenings when she is sitting with her feet up...no slippers for this lady! (Of course she has been washing them regularly)

Kay found some lovely yarn, during one of her middle of the night scans on her ipad, and came up with a hank of Titus by baa ram ewe, in 70% British Wool and 30% UK Alpaca.  Each time I have to wind up a hank, its lovely to get out the wooden swift and the winder, but I do have to look up the instructions!

It is indeed a fine yarn and very warm...but now I know why I personally err towards lighter colours.  It was not easy to knit this one by artificial evening light.

I had started with a complex lace pattern, but realised that even counting the stitches was hard.  I frogged the sock and started again.  In the end I decided to knit up a fairly plain  pair of socks as long as I thought I could get out of the wool without my usual panic, with some little hearts.

Even counting the rows was difficult so used a contrasting yarn to weave in and out every 10 rows...for the second sock it was every five, as this much easier to see and very quick to count up.  I used this out of desperation, and now I have a technique to help me through other projects.  For most of these photographs, I have lightened them on the PC.

Here are the socks finished...the hearts are on the outside so there is a left and right sock, and I had just a comfortable amount of the cake left, and I had a little more in the bottom of my project bag left from frogging or pulling out the little of lacy sock that I had given up on.

With that I knitted up a little bit of rick rack..as I just could not find the right sort of ribbon!

Kay gives so many hours of her time to making things for other people, and also leading our WI craft group each week...its lovely to think I can make her something!