Test knitting, not for the faint of heart... or weak of reading skills.

So right after my Spring term of school ended, I was wandering in the testing pool group on Ravelry and found a call for sock test-knitters. Now I've never done test knitting for anyone before, but I had the next week off and I've been looking for a nice meaty pattern to try my hand at.

In this, I found it.

The pattern isn't incredibly complicated, but it does take a bit of attention, and some time. Also, I chose the tangliest yarn I've ever knitted with to make them. I ended up cutting about 30 yards off in order to get an untangled ball of yarn. Incredibly, this worked just fine. The 30 yards went into my swatch, and the rest made both socks with exactly 13 yards to spare. I am never this lucky.

For anyone who is unaware of this, Alice Yu, aka Socktpus has a book of her sock patterns coming out this fall, including this lovely. The patterns run toward the intermediate level knitter, and are beautifully designed, down to the heel and gussets. Even the toe on this baby isn't from your average sock pattern.

It took me three days to finish the first, and after sending her information on my final product I set the second one aside for a few weeks. Finally, tonight, I finished it. This finishing taught me a few lessons.

1. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS! I struggled more with the second than the first because my eyes kept skipping one critical piece of information.

2. Don't leave more than a week between knitting a first and second sock, unless you want to have to relearn a pattern. This may not qualify for any younguns out there who have amazing memories, but I had completely forgotten the heel setup round and how it worked to flow into the rest of the pattern.

3. I love orange. Not useful information for anyone other than me, but there it is.

and finally,

4. I will put up with any kind of bad behavior, if the finished product is worthy. I made these socks with Ella Rae laceweight (which is more like a light fingering, for anyone who hasn't used it) and it had the aforementioned tangling issue. It took me almost two hours to get it into the ball that I ended up using. It knit up so soft and squishy, though, and the socks are just so perfect... I'll definitely be knitting with it again. Maybe next time I'll ask my LYS to ball it up for me, though. See, I'm not just a masochist, I'm a sadist too.

I strongly suggest anyone interested in sock knitting keep an eye out for Alice's book this fall; I know I will be.

Okay folks, it's finally bedtime for me. It's my birthday today, I am officially old-ish, and am also not supposed to eat cake, thanks to my diet.