Outer Banks knitting

It was only last week that we returned from the annual Maidens family trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, but it already seems like it happened last summer! Time flies when you're back at work. . .and it's crazy busy. . .and you're cursing a lot. . .oh wait, where was I? Ah yes, the beach.

I only brought 2 socks to work on during the trip. I almost brought 5, but then realized I was being insane, since we'd only be there for a week and I was planning to pack everything in a single backpack (I have really bad luck with planes and checking in luggage.) I narrowed it down to the Bloody Mary socks, an easy knit, and the orange Bayerische socks, a more challenging project.

In between swimming in the warm ocean, walking on the beach, picking crabs, drinking beer, hanging out with the Maidens clan, and eating Utz potato chips (of course!), I managed to finish a sock:





Pattern: Bloody Mary
Yarn: Socks that Rock Lightweight, colorway Pink Granite

That Bloody Mary is one hell of a quick knit. I'm already almost done with the second sock. In fact, by the time I finish with this blog post, it will probably have knit up the toe all by itself. . .

At first I made the leg 7 inches long, but when I tried it on after turning the heel, I realized it was a little tight at the very top. So I frogged it until the leg was only 5 inches long. Perfect!

As for the other project, I made some progress on the Bayerische sock #1, and now I'm onto the home stretch of the foot:



I would have gotten a lot more done, except that I discovered I had been reading the pattern wrong after I turned the heel and had to rip all the way back to that point. Sigh. This sock is probably the hardest thing I've ever knit. But I'm still having fun with it, and all the cables and patterns look super cool.