My year started out in a pretty delightful way. While I was home on New Year’s Eve quite early (due to some massive fatigue), Matt managed to talk me into some hiking on the next day. He woke up energized and excited around 7:30. I was still grumbling and reluctant when he suggested going on an extensive day hike, but I went along with it, deciding I would probably enjoy it more than my 7:30 self believed. I was right. We went to a place called Hemmed in Hollow near the Buffalo River. It was a lovely day. The hike out of the waterfall area was STEEP and arduous, but it was all well worth it in the end. It was an excellent experience and I’m glad that Matt pushes me to spend more time in the outdoors.
I finished a second pair of socks for Matt. I also realized that I never posted about the first pair I made for him. We took pictures of them back in October, I think, and he still loves them.
This colorway is from the Opal Winter Fairy Tale collection. I don’t think it’s being manufactured anymore, but the color is 2150 if you feel like hunting for it. I love Opal sock yarns. I usually have some kind of plain stockinette pair on the needles and I love to see how the self-striping happens.
It keeps me going. The yarn is also extremely durable. I have favorite sock yarns for softness (like Malabrigo, or Tosh sock, or Koigu), but for durability Opal and Regia are stellar.
The second pair was made with Ty-Dy sock yarn in color 1364. I also enjoy the chaotic splashes of color and the ways they co-mingle. I did both pairs from the toe up, using all but maybe a 1/2 yard of the yarn. This time I did some ribbing and followed it with 3 rows of stockinette. I read somewhere that if you finish with a few rows of stockinette and bind off normally then the cuff should still be stretchy. When I was beginning to bind off it did not feel especially stretchy, so I did Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off like usual. I accidentally deleted the pics of these…so I’ll have to post some later when I get another chance to take a pic of his feet in daylight.
This almost ends my little sock parade. After I finished Matt’s socks, I realized that all I had left on the sock needles were a pair of Jaywalkers I started ages ago. So I finished them! 
I used Koigu (color 342) and they were a little shorter than I wanted with just two skeins. Koigu comes in 175 yard skeins. With Jaywalkers eating up a wee bit more yarn the patterning, I decided to pull some Shibui out of my stash and made a complimentary cuff. The Shibui color is called Blue Spruce. 
Damn, I love making socks.
