Starry Knit: Wherein I get my sock mojo back

The Yarn Harlot put me on her blog with the beer I made her! Squee! I could not be more excited, very awesome. The link there is to the entry with my picture in it, you have to scroll down a bit.

I've been spinning spinning spinning recently, and getting a little worried at how it piles up so fast! It's quite addicting because I can have a whole new skein of delicious handspun in a few hours, and my brain views this as way more exciting than another mitered square. But seeing the Yarn Harlot got my brain back on socks, and it's been a while since I finished the Salish Sea socks. So on Monday night I finally pulled out my Bitter Orange yarn and cast on for a pair of socks. These will be large guy-patterned socks for the significant other (these are so his colors):

In this picture you can see one of the frighteningly abrupt changes in the thickness of the yarn, and the nifty orange stripe on the leg. It happened all by itself, no planning! These are pretty generic toe-up socks on my trusty size 2 (2.75 mm) Addi Turbos. These Addis were the first pair of sock needles I bought (man that was back in the day). I'm getting a gauge of somewhere between 5.5 and 6 stitches to the inch, and the foot is 52 stitches around. I also have a little 4-stitch cable running up the side of the foot and leg. Hey Ruth is it okay if I shamelessly ~~steal~~ borrow your design idea? I think it's fabulous for a guy's sock. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. :)

Between the charming little cable and the rather big gauge, the first sock just flew off my needles. In contrast, when I was doing the Salish Sea socks, it was fairly slow plodding along. I'm guessing there needs to be something (ANYthing!) in the pattern to keep me going. I whipped through the heel turn and cuff on those, but the legs took freakin' forever. After only four days, the Bitter Orange sock is awaiting another four rounds of ribbing or so and a bind-off. This sock is actually a lot of firsts for me: first handspun socks, first self-designed socks I took copious notes on, first time I've used South African fine wool, first guy's socks I didn't use a pattern for. I'm hoping I'll be able to start the second one today, but the outlook is not so good. The significant other leaves for Germany this Wednesday, so this afternoon and evening is the big going-away bash at our (rather small) apartment. Originally I wanted to have the socks done for him before he leaves, but I don't think that will happen, because I still have to do things like eat and shower and go to work. Oh yeah, I guess that means no buttons for the Tangled Yoke yet, either.

I guess I might be farther along if I hadn't done any spinning this week. I finished up the Pigeonroof Studios Hydrangeas superwash merino roving that I bought at Color. It's about 145 yards, a fairly consistent DK weight. It would probably be more consistent in thickness if I hadn't taken a four-day break in between spinning the two halves of the bump:

I'm in love with it anyway. Those are two really awesome colors: the pale ice teal blue mixing with the vibrant warm purple. Yum! Here, have a gratuitous close up: