Un-vanilla socks

I've been knitting socks for over a year now, so it's time to expand my horizons. Since I don't see myself giving up my sock habit any time soon, I want to develop a more intuitive sense of what I like in terms of construction and methods. There are so many options that I'm sure I have yet to discover my Perfect Sock.

Until now, I've used magic loop, and almost always worked cuff-down, so for my first adventure, I decided to try DPNs and a toe-up sock. That turned out to be a bit too much adventure when I discovered that the way I purl clashed painfully with my inept way of holding my needles, so I scaled back to a toe-up sock on magic loop.

I used Carle' Dehning's recipe for vanilla toe-up socks with an afterthought heel - another technique I hadn't tried yet. For the toe, I used Lynne Ashton's rounded toe recipe, since I think the "normal" toe-up toe looks a little too chunky.

I knit these in Loops & Threads Luxury Sock, with the toes, heels, and cuffs in Knit Picks Stroll. Both of these were leftovers from my iPod cozy and my iPad cozy, and although I was just trying to use stuff up, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I like the finished socks. I've heard that people sometimes have trouble with Loops & Threads' color consistency, but since I squeezed two socks out of a 50-gram ball, they match fine. The fit of the sock is good, too, including the heel. Rather than working in a gusset, the recipe just adds a few stitches to the heel area, which seems to work fine for my foot.

Now that I have a toe and a heel that I'm happy with, I think I'm ready for my next pair of self-striping toe-up socks!