The journey to a pair of socks

This past Saturday we went to Texas to celebrate the 90th birthday of the hubby’s grandmother (AKA “Mo”). When we first heard about the party several months ago, I knew right away that I wanted to knit her a pair of socks. I figured if she is anything like my own 90 year old grandmother, she has everything she will ever need or want for her house, but she would probably treasure something lovingly hand-knitted to keep her feet warm during the cold winter months. Plus, I felt pretty safe that nobody else was going to bring the same gift. So socks it was.

I let Hubby go through some of my sock yarn (I wasn’t foolish enough to let him see the entire stash) and he picked out the yarn, handpainted Merino from Sunshine Yarns in a colorway called Violets. This yarn was a gift from KatyaR for Christmas a couple of years ago. Oddly enough, the socks I made for my own grandmother were also made from purple gift yarn from KatyaR.

Once hubby chose the yarn, I had to pick a pattern. I let my MIL go through some of my books and we picked a couple of patterns together. And thus began my journey. I experimented with no less than 5 patterns before I finally decided which one to use for the socks. Some of the patterns were started more than once because I realized that the sock was going to be far too big or small, or I just HATED the pattern. I actually lost count of the number of times I ripped and restarted these damn socks. I have never had this much trouble choosing a pattern before! I finally went to Ravelry and did a search to see what everyone else had made with this same yarn, and I found someone who had the exact same colorway I was using, and I loved the pattern she used and how it looked with the yarn. I knew I had to throw originality out the window and copy this woman or I would never actually make the socks and Mo’s feet would stay cold this coming winter.

The pattern? Sheri’s Lace by Sockbug. Here are the results:

(modeled here by my lovely SIL Lisa's skinny legs)

Even though I was happy with the pattern, it still wasn’t a completely painless process, and I found that I had to pay very close attention to the lace portions, or I would have to rip back a row and try again. Also, for reasons I haven’t been able to figure out, my lace eyelets look much smaller and totally uneven compared to Sockbug’s. Anyone out there know why? I welcome any pointers.

Anyway, Happy 90th, Mo! I hope you and your feet are happy for many more years.

Also, here are a couple of pictures I took from Hubby's uncle's back yard (Lake Ray Hubbard, I love you!):

I think I may want to move. I could definitely get used to this view every day.