March 4, 2011

Socks for Joe

Finally.  I finally finished February's socks and even though they went overtime, I don't feel badly about it.  As Meaghan, Heather and Marsha (and a few others) pointed out in the comments, they're big socks and February is the shortest month and that was a loser's game from the start.  If Joe's feet were shorter and the month were longer, I would have nailed it. 

"It's Tea Time" socks, from Around the World in Knitted Socks , Cherry Tree Hill supersock solids in Bark. 

Joe thinks they're fantastic, because they meet all of his criteria for socks.  Joe likes socks to be a neutral colour. This category is slightly more expansive than you think. It naturally includes white, cream, black, grey, beige, taupe and brown, but can also include any other colour that is a dark enough shade of that colour so as to be "manly".  This includes very dark blue, very dark green, very, very dark red and absolutely excludes purple in any shade or tint. (Purple, Joe is sure, is not a man's colour.) They aren't stripey, which can be dodgy, even if the stripes are comprised of acceptable colours.  (Too many colours at once - also not manly, although for some reason I don't understand at all- this does not apply to plaids.  The man is a mystery.)  The big bonus for Joe is that these socks are fancy in the right way.

Joe likes texture on his socks.  Decorative knit/purl patterns, ribs, cables, they're all his idea of snazzy knitting, and in this department I can do anything I want, as long as a yarn-over doesn't sneak in anywhere.   That's lace.  You can imagine what category lace falls in for Joe. 

It's like at some point in his knit-education (which is not inconsiderable, even before he met me the man was raised by knitters - and for the record, he can sort of knit, though rather oddly, chooses not to) Joe grasped the concept that lace is usually comprised of yarn overs, and decided then that a yarn over always equals lace.  That even a single  yarn over is a singular bit of lace.  This causes him to be rather suspicious of yarn over buttonholes, and their presence needs to be justified quickly, lest Joe comment that I'm putting "a bit of lace" on the front edge of a cardigan. 

These socks though, they're perfect, in the world according to Joe - and despite the way they had me muttering foul language towards the end... 

It was remarkable how much better looking they got when they were off my needles and on his feet. The only thing that he doesn't like about them is that after the photo shoot they came off his feet, and went into the long-range-planning box.  He can look for them to re-surface at Christmas.  He already got socks this season.

Posted by Stephanie at March 4, 2011 10:41 AM