Where are they now?

Whatever happened to your .................................?

Write about the fate of a past knitting project.  Whether it be something you crocheted or knitted for yourself or to give to another person.  An item that lives with you or something which you sent off to charity.

I love the idea of this topic, seeing finished projects on peoples blogs is great but this has made me think that it would be a great idea to check back in six months later to give a true appraisal of an item.  It is standing up to wear?  Do you even really wear it or is there some heretofore unthought-of flaw in the design that only became apparent after a couple of wears.  This is something I hope I can bear in mind for future posts.

However, for today I'm actually going to look at an item which I've never actually blogged about.  In fact these socks were knitted long before I had a blog and before I joined Ravelry.  I love them a lot so I thought it would be nice if they got a few moments in the spotlight.

Terrible phone pic before I put them on yesterday

These socks bear the title of my first ever completed pair of socks - completed being the operative word here.  My first foray into sock knitting was with a sort of dusky pink ball of Opal Uni and a set of splitty bamboo DPNs.  I got just past the heel, I was enjoying the process of the knitting and I was pleased that the construction of socks had finally lost it's mystery but the endless dull pinkness was too much.  I put down the sock and started something else and by the time I went back to it I was lost.  But, the seed was sown, I knew then that I could enjoy sock knitting so I splashed a little bit more for some Opal Feelings.  I was enchanted!  It's quite sad, but the anticipation of a new colour turning up kept me going and I finished the first sock and then the second.  They weren't perfect, but they were my first socks. I wear them quite regularly and 4ish years on they are still going strong.  When I was knitting them there were some quite thin bits in the yarn, I just kept knitting and now there are a few dropped stitches where the yarn has completely snapped.

Wash and wear seems to have felted these stitches in place though and seem in no danger of getting any worse.  The only other niggle, which I have had to learn to deal with is that they just don't quite match.

That little sliver of a pink stripe on the toe there was my first lesson in accepting that socks are difficult to make match.  I've made many pairs of socks since, many more elaborate than these, but I still feel a little bit of pride when I take them out of the drawer and slip them on.  I hope to be wearing them for many years to come.