Racing socks

ETA: The fabulous Jodie, AKA Queenie Knits, saved the day (or should I say the socks). She gave me some leftover navy blue fingering weight yarn that blends nicely with the original colors.

Ok, where do I begin. Hmm....

The beginning is always a good place isn't it? Well, the beginning is 3 years ago. Here is my first post from October 2007 about the Woodland shawl and then I blocked it couple of months later. What does a shawl have to do with socks you might ask?

Well, I ended up ripping up that shawl because the size of it wasn't working. it really was too little for me to use it. I've had the ball of the ripped yarn in my yarn cupboard (What! doesn't everyone store their yarn in a yarn cupboard? - and no, that's not all the yarn I have, I have more) for a while, meaning to make one of those one-sock yarn-skein shawls out of it. However, the weekend before Thanksgiving I had the sudden urge to start socks. There were two reasons, one, I want more knitted wool socks for myself, and two, my friend was coming on the Monday for a visit and I knew I'd be taking her shopping so I wanted a very portable project to take with me.

It just so happened that I had two sock books on loan from the library. One of them being Cookie A's 'Sock Innovation'. I chose the socks called Sam (Ravelry link), because they had an intersting leg pattern but then it was smooth sailing for the foot (just plain stockinette). I like to have something interesting but I also love to speed along, so this pattern had both aspects for me.


Believe it or not, but the ripped out ball of sock yarn was the only skein of sock yarn I had (with one exception - Wisdom Yarn Poems Sock, which is a single ply sock yarn and I'm not so sure how it will hold up as socks. It was originally bought for a shawl but might turn into mittens) so I cast on for Sam.

The cable pattern was too complicated for mindless knitting, but it sure was portable. I did have to rip back and tink back couple of times, especially with the first sock, so it started to take a long time to finish. I did, however, finish the first sock during my Christmas break. When I finished the first sock I noticed that I didn't have a lot of yarn left and doubted that I had enought for the second sock.




I started the second sock right away, curious to see how far I would go until I ran out of yarn.


I actually got a lot further than I expected. I was at the start of the toe decreases when I ran out of yarn. I never thought I would make it that far. It was actually very exciting in the end, how far would I go? I was considering taking bets from people ;)




The photo above shows the two socks and how little was left. The finished sock is blocked, and the other one is not.

The photo below shows the pattern off better. The photos above don't do the pattern justice, but the one below should be closer to the real thing.



So what to do now? I have these lovely socks, all but a toe missing. I considered getting another skein, even if I got this yarn 3 years ago it's still being sold (on the Internet), I even saw a skein on Ravelry for sale (much cheaper than the online stores too). But with only a toe left I'm considering using another yarn for the toe, the problem is that I don't have any leftover fingering weight yarn that could do.

So I want to ask around. Do you have a leftover yarn I could use? This yarn is Zitron Trekking XXL color 184. I don't necessarily need the same colorway, but perhaps dark blue fingering weight yarn, preferable sock yarn (so it will hold up to wear and tear). Please look around and check if you have anything I can use? I would be forever grateful.

p.s. The pattern totally lied, the yarn requirements were 383 yards (1 skein Fleece Artist 2/6 Merino) and I was using Trekkin XXL with yardage of 460 yards and still ran out!