belated halloween socks

Anya was a little witch for Halloween (this picture is from Kentucky, where we were visiting my parents):



I had this great idea of making her striped socks to go with her costume, kind of like the wicked witch from the east in The Wizard of Oz. I made the costume, but I didn't finish the socks by Halloween - best laid plans and all that. I'm not sure those socks would have been visible under her long costume anyway, so it wasn't a big deal. As it was, I kitchenered the toe of sock #2 the following weekend in a hotel room in Missouri en route to Kansas, so Anya at least had new socks to wear when the weather cooled down later that week.

Yesterday I finally got some pictures of her wearing them!





Pattern: None, just generic socks from my noggin. They're almost knee socks, so I cast on 60 stitches at the top and decreased on every white stripe for five stripes, making them 50 stitches around. This was awkward when it came time for the heel and gusset, since a number divisible by four is much easier to work with, but I made due, and the socks fit pretty well with a teeny bit of room to grow.
Yarn: Louet Gems Fingering in bright red and white.
Needles/gauge: I used size 1 DPNs and got a tiny gauge, about 34st=4"

One last note: I learned the hard way that the red dye from this yarn bleeds pretty badly! After one washing, the white stripes now have a pinkish hue. That doesn't bother me (they're just socks, after all) but the same load of laundry had Anya's yellow sweat peasy in it! When I got it out of the machine, I saw pink streaks all over her sweater. Happily, another trip through the next load of laundry washed it out, so there is no permanent harm done, but I'll be more careful with red yarn from now on.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Get a product called retain (or maybe retayne) and it will absolutely keep things from bleeding. A quilt shop will sell it. It works pefectly!
Mom
Jessi said…
I got some sheets one time that are supposed to take all the dye from the wash and suck it up. I can't remember what they are called, but they were in the grocery.

Also, too-freakin-cute.

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