Rockin' Socks!

This week has ended up with somewhat of a focus on socks. While I am still plugging away at my large pink cotton bag (see last post), I have turned back to my Socks That Rock Marble Arches socks...which are finally finished:

I really like these socks. The colors are among my favorites, and the pattern was fun to knit and looks unique. I also love how the repeats in the yarn worked with the pattern--even though the repeats are different widths on each sock, each one is uniform and I like the way they look as a pair. Both have cool little stripes on the short-row heels--one of the first time I've done this type of heel.

Now I am about to cast on for my son's "Pittsburgh Steelers" black and gold socks. I am going to use the Garter Rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, one of my favorite sock books. I'm reading comments about Charlene Schurch's second volume, More Sensational Knitted Socks, and hope to get it soon. This was the book that taught me to knit socks, and I am going to use this pair to try socks on two circulars.

I have also decided to participate in Sockapalooza 4, hosted by Alison over at The Blue Blog. I figure, since I have such a large sock yarn stash, two new sock books and a good amount of time (the socks are "due" August 2), I'll go for it!

Finally, I have been a beta tester for the next version of Sock Wizard software. I responded to an invitation to participate on one of my Yahoo Groups, and decided to give it a try, as I've toyed with buying some sock software but have not felt that I would design my own socks just yet. The testing has been enlightening--Carole, the software designer, and her team have been quite organized, dividing up the group of us into teams who check each aspect of the program for bugs, typos, etc. A lot goes into developing these tools, and I really appreciate them more now! With all the sock focus, it probably does make sense for me to try out this product--once all the bugs are worked out, of course!