Click pic for the larger version.

I started calling these the “Socks From Hell” because the Plymouth Baby Alpaca D.K. yarn was so difficult to work with. It has a yummy soft hand, but it’s very slick. I tried birch and bamboo circular needles and sets of DP needles in bamboo, metal and plastic (Pony Pearl needles) — and different sizes of most of these. After many false starts, and one entire sock knitted and then rejected, I finally settled on bamboo circular needles in size three. I got a lot of practice at picking up dropped stitches.

The socks are striped in an off-white shade and a dark purple. The stripes are fairly wide at 10 rounds per. These were knit toe-up with a figure-8 cast-on and short-row heels with an all-over k3 p1 ribbing, except the toe and heel which are stockinette stitch.

In the cool-new-info department, when knitting these I found out that, if you knit the entire row after a color change, the knit stitches don’t look weird in the rib pattern — in fact you can’t tell at all they aren’t perls without looking very closely — and the color changes are much more crisp. I first learned to knit something like 37 years ago, but this technique was new to me and gratefully discovered!

Now I just need a better jogless jog.