My first pair of socks

Despite not having posted in a month, I've been knitting like a fiend! Now I just need to find time to post about all the stuff I've made.  Last summer, while on vacation on Vancouver Island, I visited my friend Skye who owns Alpacas of the Coast.  I bought several skeins of her gorgeous hand-dyed alpaca-merino yarn. I decided it was time to take the plunge into sock making and this is the pair that resulted from my efforts.

I used a pattern that came highly recommended by an experienced sock making friend.  It is the Basic Sock pattern (go figure) from Patons' Next Steps Four - Socks and Slippers pattern booklet.  Evidently my tension was different for each sock (at least I'm assuming that's what created the difference in the patterns). However, the contrast isn't as severe as this pair of leg warmers that I knit last fall!

The yarn for the leg warmers was purchased from an unmarked basket at La Bobineuse de Laine while on a trip to Montreal last October.  I was assured that the yarn was wool, but there was no information on the skeins so perhaps they're from different dye lots?

So now my feet and legs will be mismatched, but totally warm, just in time for summer . . .