SIPs: Socks In Progress

eta: my age in the above box has been changed - thank you to the eagle eyes who noticed!

This month I'm doing my ER rotation at a very busy hospital - it's showing me that I don't want to be an ER doc, and that I am much more comfortable in smaller, community hospitals. The experience has thought me a lot so far and, above everything else, every resident or attending physician I've worked with has been friendly and helpful. The best part of this rotation is the housing - I'll ramble more about that in the future, but everything about my current digs is wonderful - from the food to the animals the to incredibly comfortable bed, and that's not even taking into consideration the fantastically fabulous people I'm staying with. I'm not going to want to leave when it's time for me to move on.

I signed up to take the other part of my boards on Jan 3oth - it's not an ideal time, but it's as good as I'm going to get considering all the meshing of schedules that has to take place. (this part is the computer part - lots and lots and lots of multiple choice questions) I've been putting in lots of time reviewing and reading and answering practice questions which means I'm behind in all of my knitting-reading and emails (nevermind that the bag of things to be mailed is still sitting in my car. It's one step closer now that everything is all together, but I can't make any promises as to when I'll get to a post office.) I've had my phone off and haven't been getting in touch with people - as was evidenced to me when I called to talk with my parents and the first thing out of my mom's mouth was "you've surfaced!"

Board studying = sock knitting, so I dug through my car to find all of the not-yet-finished socks that could be worked on...I'm afraid there are many more than I thought there were, and we'll see how many are finished during the rest of this month.


a pair that has been featured here several times - they're 99.5% done (starting from yarn dyed last New Year's) but the toes still aren't sewn up. I plead the fifth as to why they still remain unfinished.

socks that rock socks, started when I was in York, PA last August. Intially I wasn't thrilled with the yarn, but leaving them to "age" a bit has changed my mind (for this pair). The fabric is thick, and the texture is different from other wool or wool blend sock yarn and I think they will wear well. (color is farmhouse, and not exactly true on my monitor.)

Pink Trekking socks, started on a whim sometime last year. I remember picking up the ball of yarn and grabbing some sock needles on my way out the door - I must have been doing something that required me to pay attention because I knit a picot edge, but didn't sew it down while I was knitting. I was hoping that this colorway would fade into various shades of pink and was disappointed when I saw it was creating a repeat'able pattern. The upside to the stripes is that this might be my first "matching" pair of socks. (I don't aim to match, but the first sock appears to have ended at just the right spot.)

On the left is a pastel trekking sock - essentially finished. (I think "essentially finished" is my new term for "where are those darning needles and when will I have time to sew the toe?) They were started at a friend's wedding in...June? On the right is a sock made from a German yarn I'd never heard of, but won in a sock yarn lot on ebay. It is producing stripes with a looooong repeat, so it looks much more random than it is. These were both before I had confidence in my picot edge, hence the ribbed calf/ankle section. (I've learned my lesson and I'm a picot believer. Ribbing has it's place and that place isn't always on my socks.)

another single Trekking sock, in a very difficult to photograph dark'ish fading colorway. This sock isn't nearly as old as the rest because I started it on my November surgery rotation. (I'd hoped to get a pair of socks done that month...) I had my picot edges down by then, but still, for some reason, ribbed the upper half of the sock. I think I'm at the toe decreases, but it'll require trying on to know for sure.

Socks started simply because I had a long day ahead of me and the needles and yarn were in my car. The yarn on the left is Opal DK, so they are knitting up quickly. The sock on the left is being knit from my new favorite sock yarns, but I couldn't find the ball band to tell you what the name is. It's German, and sold in 50g balls...when I come across the ball band, I'll let you know what it is. (it's not creating spiralling stripes OR pooling - I have had a hard time finding yarn that doesn't do either of those things!)


this is not for the faint of heart....these are older socks that were robbed of their needles so I could work on other socks. The one on the left is made in Regia yarn that was going to be for me, but the heel is too shallow and instead fits my mom. The one on the right is from older regia yarn that was discontinued years ago (the two balls I bought from a lys near my parent's house were found in the depths of their storage basement); it has more pinkish red bits than are showing up in this picture.



and last, but not least, another sock started because I had nothing else with me. It's a 100g Regia (I think?) and the colors aren't what I was expecting because they aren't as bright as I thought they would be. This one is pretty far down on the "to do" list.