My First Sale! and Pie! Socks

I love my mother-in-law. I know, right? I'm so lucky. She's amazingly energetic and enthusiastic and fun. She wanted to be my first customer, so the night I launched, she called Tobin at work to ask him to help her buy some yarn online (she doesn't shop online much). She picked Pie! --yet again, a woman after my own heart. One of my favorites!




Oh, did I mention that she doesn't knit?

So, I offered to knit her socks out of her purchase. This, obviously, is not a sustainable business model... nor a service I anticipate offering to many... but it did have something of an ulterior motive in this case. I love Pie! I wanted to knit with it... is that so wrong?

It took some doing to find just the perfect pattern for Pie!. I swatched and swatched, trying pattern after pattern that was fine. Adequate, even PRETTY, but not The One. Yes, I'm one of THOSE knitters.

Part of me is a process knitter -- I love the rhythm of stitch after stitch, the process of knitting that always teaches me a little something, the process of designing something, sorting out how to do it, and then trying it out. It's the process knitter in me that starts projects all the time, spending hours sketching and swatching and calculating, casting on,  and then abandoning them to the UFO pile as soon as I'm past the "interesting" bits.

But then, the other part of me is one of those super anal crazed knitters who has to have something JUST SO. Some little mistakes I can let go, mask in the lace or just ignore. But some of them... OOOOH. They're like this itch in the back of my brain. At first a little tingle that's easy to dismiss -- I can tell myself, "Oh, it'll be fine. Just keep going." But the itch remains. And it gets worse. And worse and worse until RIP. I can't stand it anymore and I have to do anything I can to fix whatever it was that was bothering me NO MATTER WHAT.

So it was with the Pie! socks. I wanted something lacy and pretty, something interesting to knit, but not mind-bogglingly complex... something easy to wear but interesting to look at... I tried Hedera, which is one of my favorite patterns. It was nice, but not great. I ripped those and tried Cedar Dancing, by Cat Bordhi (Ravelry) because I thought they'd make nice slipper socks, what with the lace pattern carrying down the back of the heel. But they were just... augh. Too big... Too weird... Too... not RIGHT. Ripped! I tried the Rushing Rivulets, also by Cat Bordhi (Ravelry) (it was Knitterday, and I had New Pathways for Sock Knitters with me...), but the lace pattern got lost in the deep berry tones of the yarn. FROG! Loksins crossed my mind... several patterns from Knitting Vintage Socks, by Nancy Bush...

And then, I remembered a sweet little pattern I'd knit for my mom last year, for her birthday (Raveled here). Coupling, from the Summer 2007 issue of Knitty.



Lacy, but not too ostentatious.

Continually interesting to work, but not brain-blowing.



And very, very pretty in Pie!, if I do say so myself!



I highly recommend this pattern. It has yarn overs on every round, but the lace pattern is an easy-to-memorize 8 rows. These are knit toe-up, with a reverse-gusset heel that fits my weird, high-instepped feet oh-so-perfectly! The lace is also VERY stretchy, so could fit a variety of foot sizes. If I knit these again (which I likely will, since I've done it twice now and still love it), I'd make the foot a bit smaller, by having fewer sole stitches to allow the lace across the instep to open up more.

I hope she likes them! I packed them up yesterday and sent them off to her. Thank you, Ann! For your purchase... and for letting me knit Pie!.

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