2016 FO# 6: Dry July Socks

This is yet another old project I am just writing about now months after finishing.

This year, I signed up for Dry July. I have written before why I do these kind of months - it makes me feel good, it breaks bad habits and it raises money for charity (I raised almost $300, which I thought was pretty darn impressive).

While I spent most of the month knitting on the Big White Baby Blanket, I still had a (surprisingly large) amount of time on my hands that I wanted to fill with knitting rather than sauvignon, so I cast on for a pair of commemorative Dry July socks out of blue and beige leftover sock yarn balls. 

I did them toe-up two-at-a-time so I could use all of the yarn I had and have them perfectly matched. These are pretty much like every other spiralled scrap yarn pair of socks I've made, with one exception. I did something I don't think I have done before - an afterthought calf.

It was pretty easy. Much like an afterthought heel, when I got to where I needed the heel to go I put in some waste yarn. However, instead of continuing to knit a tube, I knitted the heel and grafted it closed.

I then picked up the stitches on either side of the waste yarn ...

.. before very carefully removing the waste yarn ...

.. leaving live stitches on the needles.

I then started to knit the socks as usually, picking up an extra stitch at each side and K2TOG it in the following row so I wouldn't end up with a hole. 

That strategy didn't work too well and so I did end up using some of the ends to close holes there I picked up the stitches. I don't know that happens to me when I use the afterthought technique! I just bought Sock Architecture by Laura Neel this week, so I'm hoping that will help me fix the problem as I have heard only good things about it.

Overall, I am very happy with these socks. They fit well, are pretty cute and used up lots of bits and bobs of the monochrome sock yarn I had lying around that I don't want to use in my sock yarn blanket (at this stage, I'm only using yarns with more than one colour. This may change in the future though). 

A++, would Dry July and knit these socks again.