And what is finished is the blue/turquoise/lavender socks. Like EZ instructs us to do, I knit the tops until I couldn't stand to knit any more and (mistakenly) did a reverse knit so the top would curl over, which it does, but it also spreads out the ribbing so it is seriously flared at the top of the socks, so much so that I plan to redo the top again and just cast the darn things off! I will need to look for a cast off that has some elasticity to it, because I've been there, done that with regard to tight top cast offs. I couldn't even get one pair of socks over my heel.
Probably this can be resolved most easily if I were the kind of person who reads the instructions first instead of after everything else fails. I tried one cast off that has a YO between every cast off stitch but it seems to create its own ruffle so that won't do.
Unfortunately that seems to be the one big drawback to toe-up socks...trying to get the top loose enough to fit over the foot and tight enough not to ruffle. I'm still trying. But with what I estimate to be about 85 pairs worth of sock yarn, I may get it figured out by the time I run out of sock yarn (presuming I don't keep adding to my stash--hah!)
At the moment, my new sock project is from a Knitpicks kit. Six pairs of socks, each pair from one ball of cotton/microfiber yarn. They are actually anklets or lower: as soon as the heel is done, you cast off so they are a sort of slipper. They're designed for summer wear. The yarn is soft and lovely to work with, but it has cotton's drawback in that it is difficult to do k2tog and when my hands are more painful than usual it is more difficult.
That is one reason why I keep more than one project going at a time. When my hands are too painful for one, I knit on one that doesn't require a lot of fiddling with. The other projects are the wedding shawl mentioned in an earlier post, and a cotton shell which has been on the back burner for an awful long time, not because I don't care for it (I think it will be quite nice when finished) but because other projects have taken precedence and it is not actually one I can work on when my hands hurt because it is also a lace pattern with lots of k2tog and ssk requirements.
