Woot! I have a finished object, the Fireworks Socks! (Ok, yes, they took me forever, but they are finished! I figure it comes with the Improvising New Pattern territory, yes?)

Side view, with the poofy heel from heel-cuff shaping:

Top view on my big ol’ feet:

Instep view, where you can kinda-sorta see the ankle shaping:

I had a lot of fun working with the shaping on the ankles and the heel-cuff area - and even better, because of the shaping, the socks stay PUT! Socks that slide down and bunch up in my shoes drive me batty, and even though they can be a bit of a challenge to get on (ok, the bind off on the second one is really tight, but I couldn’t find my tapestry needle in the middle of moving, so I’m cutting myself some slack on that one), but they do go on, and they are REALLY comfortable. I could about sleep in these, and I just don’t sleep in socks! (I’m crazy, I know, but it really bugs me for some odd reason.)

Once the Fireworks Socks were finished, I cast on for the Combat Boot Socks, for the Yarn Husband. They are being designed to be worn with, you guessed it, his combat boots and camo. As a result, they are solid black, and have to be able to take a beating. It also means that I’m a bit limited in how much patterning I can do (lace is out of the question!) since, um, they have to conform to military dress regulations and such. The dear Yarn Husband wants “really fine ribbing” just like his current, commercial, combat boot socks. Dear Heart, I hate to break it to you, but that’s not ribbing, that’s just straight knit stitch! (I’m just proud of him for knowing what ribbing is and having a general idea of what it looks like.)

Anyway, I had made some progress on the Combat Boot socks, but decided yesterday that I wasn’t liking what I had, and frogged. (It involved plated knit stitches, and that was doing strange things to my yarn. Like untwisting it.) Cast on again, and have made it past the toe increases. What? Of course they are toe-up! Seamless socks FTW! (For The Win.) Anyway, pictures!

This is what I’ve got at the moment, along with the big ball of my hand-dyed black yarn. (I don’t have black or grey fingers! The dye SO held at that depth of shade! WOOT!)

And this is a semi-close-up of what I’ve got:

I’m dead serious, there is no seam. I’ve been using something called the Eastern Cast on from a past issue of Interweave Knits; 2007 Summer Issue, “A Better Sock From The Toe Up”. It’s a bit of a pain in the ass to get it to look the way I want, and usually involves going back and tightening the foundation row of stitches after finishing it and a second row, but it looks and fits beautifully once you get it right. The lack of toe seam is a major plus in my book - I dunna like them!

Anyway, socks, socks and more socks! One of these days I’ll sit down and get the patterns tweaked, cleaned up and written down - the Fireworks Sock in particular is tricky with the shaping right after the heel, but I’d love to get it in a pattern form - and then hopefully share on Ravelry on the odd chance that someone might want to knit them!

Oh, Happy Friday guys!