Sock Number One was finished yesterday, so I cast on for the second sock and I'll wait until its mate is knitted and block them at the same time.In order to make a no-knot smooth join when adding the second skein, I used a tip in Sheep's Clothing's blog on how to splice wool, and it worked very well.
Today, the two Jaeger skeins came in the mail from an eBay seller, so I can get back to those Hiking Socks! The Lot numbers are the same as the skein I started with, so that was fortunate.
These are two other Clover Tweed dishcloths that were knitted in the meantime, and a picture showing both the right and wrong sides of the green Clover Tweed. Some knitters prefer both sides to match.
Although I downloaded the Interweave corrections pdf for these Eesti Trail Hiking Socks, the snowflake design wasn't working out, so I modified the chart and unraveled back to the border. Now it's coming along beautifully! I'm just at the point of beginning work on the heel.The colorwork isn't tight and the wrong side of the colorwork isn't loopy. The knitting is thick and sturdy, these socks will wear like iron. What a difference yarn choice can make! My practice pink sock is so flimsy and silky.
The Ravelry website had many examples of this sock pattern that knitters had made, with pattern modifications and various color combinations, and it was helpful to read the notations they had posted.
Here's the progress on my first sock. The difficult technique for me is picking up stitches for the gusset. The pattern, Eesti Trail Hiking Sock, is from Interweave's Favorite Socks, and I downloaded the errata from IW's website. The pattern has a snowflake design around the calf, which I ignored for this project. The yarn is Bernat Satin Sport in Meadow, an odd girlish camouflage look on size 3 double-pointeds. The slipstitches in the heel area have a thicker texture.
