Open Twisted Ribbing Socks

I think my tastes are changing. For years, socks have been my favorite knitting project. No matter what else I was working on, I always had a pair of socks on the needles. It might take me as little as two days or as much as two weeks to knit a pair of socks.

The pair I just completed took a month. And that required a lot of willpower.

It’s possible that the yarn wasn’t holding my interest. It’s Berroco Sox Metallic in colorway 1375, which is a self-striping wool and nylon blend in orange, green, brown, and purple with flecks of metallic gold.

The yarn itself is fine. In fact, I used it to knit a pair of socks for my children about ten years ago. The socks were outgrown long before they showed any signs of wearing out, so I had frogged them and set aside the yarn to reuse.

I think my original plan was to reuse the same stitch pattern — Little Shell Rib by Charlene Schurch in her book “Sensational Knitted Socks” — but somehow that idea didn’t make it to casting on. Instead, I chose the Open Twisted Ribbing pattern by Charlene Schurch in her book “More Sensational Knitted Socks.”

Working top down, the instructions for the heel turn came out noticeably off-center. I adjusted the stitches to center them, and then my stitch count on the sole was off by one stitch. I preferred the one-stitch difference, so I kept my adjustments to the heel turn.

When picking up the stitches along the side of the heel flap, I used the “Perfect Pick-Up” technique that I learned and shared last month. With that last pair of socks, knit stitches made up both edges of the heel flap and I found the technique to be easy and pretty. With this pair, the edges are garter stitch; it was more difficult for me to pick up the correct stitches, and it didn’t turn out quite so pretty on one sock.

Otherwise, the pattern was easy to memorize and to knit. I really like that the stitch pattern creates strong vertical lines in contrast to the horizontal stripes of color.

So why didn’t this project hold my interest? Maybe it was because I already made a pair of socks with this yarn. The colors are ideal for autumn, but maybe they don’t hold the same appeal ten years later. Or maybe — gasp! — I’m losing interest in knitting socks.

With more than 25 pairs of hand knit socks in my drawer, time is on my side until the desire to knit a pair of socks strikes again.