Well, it is official now. I have knit my first pair of socks. All in all I am very happy with them. Not bad for the first pair.
First pair of socks
I confess they are a bit too big for him. I will have to shorten the next pair up. Also they are too loose. I deliberately used a larger needle because I didn’t want them to be tight around his ankles. Well they really are too loose and I should have just followed the directions and used the correct size needles. As a result, they bunch up around his ankles, but he is wearing them today anyway! Gosh, I love that man!
Now for my dilemma. What to knit next? I only have one pair of size 2 circulars so I can only knit one pair of sock. There is a beautiful pattern in Charlene Schurch’s book, More Sensational Knitted Socks that I want to try, but I am wondering if I should keep it simple and more portable. I would use the beautiful Gloss yarn that I just got from Knitpicks. If I had another set of size 2’s this would be simple. I would start a pair of plain ribbed socks with the pink Aussi yarn and I would do the multi colored socks from MSKN with the Gloss.
I have a feeling it will be the multicolored socks.
It’s possible that washing and drying the socks will alleviate the bagginess issues. It might make them a little thicker, but I really like the way my plain knit socks feel after they’ve felted a little. You just have to be careful they don’t get too small, but mine always stretch to my foot size when I put them back on.
It’s funny you should recommend that. I just washed them for the first time today and they stretched even bigger! They are enormous now! I was laughing as I took them out of the water. They stretched like silly puddy. I did wash them by hand. Perhaps if I throw them in the wash machine they will shrink up. Can’t hurt to try. This is superwash marino though, so I don’t know.
I think the dryer is the key actually…It’s a risk, but if they are even bigger now it just might work!
I threw them in the dryer and it worked! Much better now. Thanks for the suggestion Emily.