There, I have one completed sock which demostrates fairly accurately the amount of effort I’ve put into my knitting this past week. My knitting needles have deemed me absent without leave on many occasions. I thought I’d make it up to you, and them, by providing glamour shots of the shameful amount of progress which I have made.

I’ve given this sock a relatively long ribbed cuff and a slip-stitch heel flap. I think my next pair of socks will have a plain 1×1 ribbed heel flap so I can do a decent comparison. I’ve closed the toe stitches with a knitted Kitchener join. I go back and forth between a standard toe shaping with Kitchener finish, and a Barn Toe which decreases to fewer stitches and is closed by simply threading the end of the yarn through the remaining stitches. I think on the whole I prefer the fit of the socks when the toe has a squarer finish, but I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps that means the next pair will have a ribbed heel flap and barn toe? That could be a jolly cunning plan.

I’ve done a silly thing and not cast straight on for the second sock which means I will have to sit myself down and encourage myself to get back to the project. First, though, I have to wipe the blood off the needles because I sustained a slight knitting injury (honestly, really slight – the equivalent of pricking your thumb on a thorn whilst gardening). I won’t go into details, just say that in future if I’m so silly as to lay my work on the floor I’m going to make sure I’m wearing boots with reinforced soles! Barefoot knitters beware!

I also managed to get around to giving the Coconut Ice sweater its bath and am duly ecstatic about the way the fibres have bloomed. The fit is perfect and the hem now sits lovely and flat, its previous tendency to flip up completely eradicated. I think this flared body shape is my favourite to date and I fancy more of the same. The only thing I’m not completely gone on is that shaping around the neckline which, to my eye, pulls a bit. I expect that’s down to the way I picked up the stitches for the collar, or the weight of the double-thickness collar, or how it’s attached on the inside. It doesn’t detract from my feelings about this sweater, but I’ll take it forward to my future projects as something to improve.

Oh, and I’m still taken with that short-sleeved top that’s lurking in the background there. It could be a spring knit for next year.

Should I set myself a goal? Should I try to be ready to work the heel of my second sock by the time I report back on Wednesday? It feels like a stretch, but then I need to stretch myself because if I don’t there won’t ever be a second sock.