I thought a good way to start the three day weekend would be to finish one of the pairs of socks lingering on my needles. Since Sock Madness is hours away from completion, I thought it would be cool to get the pair I was working on when I was eliminated from competition off my pointy sticks before one of the four knitters currently sparring for world domination finishes her final pair (at least three pairs past mine).

The fastest of the competitors knit this pair of socks in roughly a day. Mine took me a month. (Admittedly, for much of the last three weeks, they’ve just been sitting in a project bag on my desk.)

The pattern only gave one direction, so, since I wanted the second sock to mirror the first, it required a little more thinking than a second sock usually takes.

One of my teammates wrote out one of the tricky rows for the benefit of everyone, but there were still times when I stared at the sock and thought, well, now what?

Obviously, I either figured it out or I faked it pretty darn well, if I do say so myself.

The yarn is PennyRose Penny, a merino-nylon blend, in a gorgeous green-blue colorway called Spring Forest. The colorway was dyed exclusively for Sock Madness members, and I bought it for myself as a birthday treat (along with another exclusive colorway). The yarn was lovely to work with, and I’d recommend it to any lover of tonal hand-dyed sock yarn.