One and These Will Never Be Done

I hope all of you had a nice July 4th, if you celebrate.  Ours was quiet but nice.  We spent as little time as possible outside, because the humidity made it hard to breathe, but we had a good day nonetheless.

Today I have a HO (Half-finished Object) for you, that will only ever remain in that state.  You may or may not remember these:

I was making a pair of Tracie Millar's Georgia Socks.  Not just because I liked the pattern, but because I have been wanting to make more shortie socks, since I like them in warmer weather.  But so far, I'd only made myself two pairs, which I talked about here and here.  Those socks have gotten a fair amount of wear, and have also held up really well.

Well, on Wednesday, I finished sock #1:

And that, my friends, is the last time you will ever see this project.  Because I'm not knitting a sock #2, for the following reasons:

1.  It turns out I don't enjoy scrappy socks where you change yarns so frequently.  The lighter stripes were just not enjoyable, because you just didn't get to use the yarn enough to really feel like it was working.  As a matter of fact, I changed the toe because I was sick of the tiny stripes.

2.  In the interest of giving afterthought heels another go, and learning something new, I decided to go with the cut in afterthought heel included in the pattern.  And I have decided that afterthought heels are just not for me.  They are too fiddly, and I hated having to still make the heel once the sock knitting was finished.

3.  Having said that, I was ready to soldier on with sock #2, because they looked nice enough.  The clincher to this forever and always being an HO was when I tried them on.  I was knitting the size I usually knit, with the needles I usually use, and after everything else, they were WAY too small, and the heel was incredibly uncomfortable.

So - NOPE.

Yesterday I started a pair of plain vanilla shortie socks.

I'm not saying I would never make this pattern again, as I enjoyed knitting it.  But in the future, I'll make a larger size, with a heel flap and gusset.  And I will either do a colorblock thing, similar to the one other pairs I've made, or just use a solid or self-striping yarn.

On the one hand, it was disappointing and frustrating.  But it was also a good learning experience, and worth it for that reason.  It just means it will take a bit longer until I have another pair of shortie socks.  ;-)

Here's hoping you have a good weekend.  I took the day off work today, and will be meeting a friend for lunch, which should be fun.  We used to work together and teach serials cataloging workshops together, then I left and took another job and she retired.  So occasionally, we get together for lunch and have a lot of laughs.  Other than that, neither myself nor The Tim have any specific plans.  I think it's supposed to be another hot one, so it may not be conducive to doing a whole lot.  But it's still a weekend, so we'll take it.

Keep cool, and I'll see you on Monday with the winner of the first giveaway!