Sockdown OCTOBER and NOVEMBER

What's this? TWO tales of the Sock Knitters Anonymous Challenges going untold? With my recent sweater obsession my socks have gone neglected and unfinished. The November Sockdown Ravelry Challenge is underway and I still have not finished the challenge from October! And, I might as well confess that my pair of October Mystery socks have gusset stitches to be picked up! I really need to get all three pairs finished this by the end of the month. Fortunately, I will have a road trip to Texas in a couple weeks with lots of time to knit in the car.


The October sock challenge was to pick a Stephanie van der Linden pattern. This is a new designer for me. The minute I saw the Lizzy pattern I thought of my daughter Jennifer and knew the socks would be destined for her feet. I'm not sure if it was the celtic lace knotwork or the 'whiteness' of the legs on the model. Or perhaps it was because the sock on the model was knit in her favorite color, blue, and I remembered some blue yarn I had bought for her when I first started knitting. Whatever it was....these Lizzy socks will be for Jen-Jen.

Pattern: Lizzy by Stephanie van der Linden
Yarn: Brownsheep Wildfoote in Peasant Blue
Needles: 2.25mm

The Loopy Ewe had a sale on Regia yarn last weekend and I jumped at the opportunity to purchase some Kaffe Fasset yarn. I always love his colors and this 'Canyon' colorway is no exception. Isn't it lovely?

Because I did not want to obscure the colors I decided this needed to be a plain vanilla sock. Then, I remembered that Wendy D. Johnson was one of the designers we could choose for the November Sockdown Ravelry. Having read her blog for several years, I knew Wendy to be a a toe-up girl so I picked one of her basic toe-up patterns. This one will have a gusset.

Here is the start of a toe! It is always exciting to learn something new, isn't it? BTW, did I mention that I started the My First Toe Ups group several Socktoberfests ago to learn how to knit toe-ups? That blog isn't very active anymore because we have a group on Ravelry. With the hustle and bustle of managing the participants, I never learned.

Now I have a question for YOU - which method do YOU prefer? Cuff down or toe up? If you are a toe-up fan can you tell me why you prefer this method?