I felt so good finishing up the years-old work in progress baby blanket a couple months back, I picked up another one, a pair of socks with a long history. My mom bought the yarn with the idea that she’d make her brother some socks, but unfortunately her arthritis had progressed to a point where working with the small sock needles just wasn’t possible for her to do comfortably any more. So she passed along the project to me, but before I got to the heel, my uncle died, so I put the project away, not sure what I’d do with it eventually. I didn’t get a chance to talk to my mom about it before she died in 2016.
When I came across the not quite half-finished socks recently while reorganizing my knitting stuff to make it more accessible, I asked Mr. Karen if he’d wear the socks if I finished them, and he said he would, so I did. I think my mom would have approved; she always liked Mr. K. (In the photo below, I’m modeling the finished socks, craftily hiding the heels because these socks are a bit too big for me.)

I’d already established the ribbing on the top of the foot when I picked this project back up; I’d made that choice since I didn’t have measurements for my uncle’s feet, so the ribbing would allow some additional stretch to help with fit. I was able measure Mr. K’s feet, so I was confident about when to start the heel. (I used my trusty copy of Queen Kahuna’s Crazy Toes and Heels book to refresh my memory about sock knitting.) Still, since I’d never made socks for him before, having that ribbing on the foot was nice insurance. I just continued the same ribbing pattern on up the leg, stopping when I ran out of yarn. (I did have to take a break mid-leg to rebalance the balls of yarn, as one was much lighter than the other. I’m not sure how that happened … I would have thought she’d have bought two balls and they would have been the same to start. But maybe she used up some from one ball on an unsuccessful attempt and didn’t unravel that, just threw it out. I could see that happening.)

I don’t know what yarn this is. I don’t think I ever had the ball bands. There are so many self-striping yarns it’s not going to be easy to track it down after the fact. I do still have some totes of craft stuff from my mom’s house to go through, so maybe I’ll come across something helpful in there whenever I get to those.

And now I need to decide what to knit next, as I’ve run out of WIPs. There are so many possibilities. Need is not a consideration; I don’t need more knitwear. Of course, I don’t need more nail polish either, but still buy some now and again because it cheers me up. I’m leaning toward a tank top, since it’s summer and I’ve never knitted a tank top, but by the time I finish knitting one, it might no longer be summer, so maybe that’s not a great plan. Must ponder more.