Is this thing on?

Yes, I know - it's been a while.  There has always been knitting and it's time to blog again because it helps me focus and keep a proper record of what I'm knitting.  Also, living in the rural backwater, as I do, I don't meet many knitters in the flesh (so to speak).  It's nice to feel part of a larger whole.

I'm not going to go into all the knitting I've done - even if I could remember (see above), so I'm just going to start from where I am,
which is always good advice.

I was flittering (technical term) around Ravelry, when I found this pattern for some fancy socks.  I don't really do top down socks - they never seem to fit me properly, so I made these toe-up.

I used the non-shaped round toe from Chrissy Gardiner's book "Toe-Up!".  Cast on 16 stitches using Judy's Magic Cast On:

 

I'm thinking this might be a little bit too pointy and maybe in future I should cast on 10 stitches per needle.

The stitch pattern is simple and works well with this very busy yarn - I actually started about three different patterns before settling on this:

 

The heel is the hybrid heel, also from "Toe-Up!".  This heel has the benefit of a gusset:

 

and no picking up of stitches - which always looks like a dog's breakfast, at least when I do it.

I decided on Eye of Partridge stitch for the heel flap - just because I could:

 

Cast off was Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind off:

 Here we have the finished sock:

The other one is about to come off the needles and it seems there may be more of this pattern in my future:

'Im indoors: "That's nice."
Pause.  "Do you think it would look nice in a man's sock?"

Oh, dear.