Hedgerow Socks - done

I finished these Hedgerow Socks last week but have not been able to get a decent photo to share.  At first I thought it was because the weather has been so relentlessly gray here and I wasn’t getting enough contrast between the yarn and my background (also gray).  This morning there is a bit of wan late winter sunshine, and I still couldn’t get a great shot.  I touched up the color a bit in Picnik to try to reveal this yarn’s true color, but this is as good as I could get it.  My older stash photo (taken in May sunlight) is probably a better match:

The camera brings out the blue.  There are blue notes here, but the yarn definitely reads as “green.”

For the most part, I like these socks.  However, the yarn is a bit tricky.  It’s a two-ply, which means it’s bumpier than most sock yarn (remember the more plies you add, the more circular your yarn cross section becomes, and the smoother the yarn).  2-ply yarn wants to lock together when it touches.  I understand that weavers prefer 2-ply for exactly this reason.  I could tell the yarn wanted to “lock” while I was knitting it.  I had to pull it quite sternly at times.  Knitting this yarn was harder on my hands than rounder yarn is.

I tried to relax some on the second sock, and as a result, the sock is slightly bigger.  I checked and doublechecked, and I think the stitch/row counts are the same.  But the sock is bigger.  I’m not sure what to do about it.  I may rip back the toe and start it a couple rounds sooner.  I may try to full the sock a bit (no superwash, so it should work – but I should test on a swatch).  I may just give it to someone with bigger feet who can fill it out.

The pattern looked simple but was deceptive, too.

So all in all, this is a project that took more cunning than I expected.

One of the upshots of this project is that I think I should strive to spin a 3-ply sock yarn, which REALLY means I need a smaller whorl.  And I think I should figure out how to spin woolen style (not worsted, which I do now), so that the resulting yarn will be bouncier.

More study and practice needed.  :)