Francie Socks At Last

Here's a pair of socks that really kicked my butt. I wanted them madly as soon as I saw them on the Yarn Harlot's site and bought the pattern and the suggested yarn right away. I cast on, completed the first repeat and then... nothing. the copious amount of ribbing just made me want to throw them at someone.



It says a lot about the design of these socks and the nifty looking sole in particular that I ever finished them. I picked them up and put them down countless times but in the end I really wanted these socks on my feet so I persevered.

I still think that these socks look very weird off the foot. All socks look different without a foot inside but these are weirder than most. I think it's all the ribbing and the foot shaping that does it. Just weird.

The yarn I used is DIC Smooshy in Lipstick Lava and it's really lovely. I'm not sure it's the softest yarn I've ever felt but it's nice. It's got a good hand and it knit up without any problems. The thing that makes this yarn a keeper is the color. I adore yarns with subtle shifts in color and that's exactly what DIC is all about.

The only tricky part of this pattern for me was when it got to the toe. My socks were starting to look a little long for my feet so I elected to stop the shaping and move on to the toes early. I read and re-read the instructions and I'm pretty sure that I followed the instructions exactly but as I knit those toes I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was doing it wrong. I cannot tell you how I agonized over those toes. I counted the stitches over and over and examined the pictures and pondered the instructions endlessly. I'm still not sure I got them right but they look fine hen they're on the feet so maybe I'm just paranoid.



Because these socks are really all about the nifty foot shaping, I had my favorite foot model do the honors with these so that I could get good angles. They also fit DQ's feet better than mine because they're still a bit too long for my feet. After all of the struggles and the mad desire I felt for these socks it turns out that they'll belong to DQ instead of me. Oh well!