Queen Alice Socks

The sweater problem that was plaguing me the last few days has been resolved, and after ripping back a few inches and redoing, I am heading back in the right direction, now. I'm pretty sure the hard part is over (famous last words?) and while I do intend to take a photo of the Work in Progress soon, I don't have one today, so in lieu of that, here's a pair of socks.


The first moment I laid eyes on the pattern for Queen Alice socks, I was enchanted: little daisies in the cuff and delicate twisty cables along the length of them, and that one big ol' cable filled with seed stitch, tumbling down the rabbit hole. I envisioned it in a bright vibrant colour, and dug a skein of Sweet Georgia's superwash sock out of my stash.

Funny story - when I saw this colour (called Dutch) online, I thought it was a bright golden yellow, with a tinge of orange to it. Of course, you never know whether a colour is accurate on your computer monitor, right?

When it arrived at my house, I was happy to see that it was precisely the vibrant hot yellow I had hoped it would be. So imagine my surprise when I pulled it out of my stash and wound it, a month ago, and realized that it's actually orange! It's super duper orange, and I don't know how I thought it was yellow, before. Seriously, like it's almost identical to the Hazel Knits orange I used for my Jubal Early socks, and if you recall, I totally made a huge deal out of how orange that yarn was. I swear this one was actually yellow, once. Or else I'm going crazy.

But I digress.


I did have a bit of an argument with these socks at the beginning. It was trial and error until I got the gauge right, and then having a good portion of the leg done, I decided that they were too tight at the right gauge, so I went up a needle size and then realized that the stitch pattern in the cuff was actually pulling in too much so I just did that part in plain ribbing instead. It all went smoothly after that, and all I had to do was switch back down to the right size needle at the heel flap. I also changed the decreases at the toe, but that's nothing major.

They actually knit up fairly quickly, considering the complex stitch pattern. At the beginning, I thought I'd never memorize it (like I always do) but somewhere past the halfway point of the first sock, I had it memorized (like I always do) and it was smooth sailing.

Great pattern + great yarn = awesome socks.