January socks

I'm trying to use my sock yarn in the order it entered my stash, so first up for this year was my Strong Sock from Another Crafty Girl. I chose this colorway specifically for the Herbology Socks from the Unofficial Harry Potter Knits collection.

Everything was progressing at a good pace, so I decided to call these my January socks since I'd probably be done within the month. And then I had a huge project that left me no knitting time at all, and I didn't touch the socks for a few weeks. And then there were other knitting projects with deadlines. And then, finally, the Olympics started and I sat down and finished a sock and a half in a few evenings of tv-watching. All told, these socks took me six weeks - the longest ever!

This is no fault of the pattern, which I love. These are the first socks I've made more for the pattern than the yarn - usually I pick the yarn first, and find something interesting and generally simple to complement it. My January socks will definitely be for special occasions (occasions like wanting to put something pretty on my feet and sit around and gaze at them). Juniper found them so appealing that a sniff and a rub were not enough:

Don't worry, the sock (and my foot) was unharmed.