Finally

I started knitting my Lissajous Socks in July of 2011. They were the For Yarn's Sake knitalong that month. After the knitalong ended I only really worked on them for one hour a week--For Yarn's Sake Sock Hour. (Pro Tip: the hour before the open knit chat is sock hour, if you come to sock hour you can get a really good seat for knit chat.) Well, after a year plus of one hour sessions, they are done!

What's that you say? The last time I showed them to you they were white? Oh yeah. I may have dyed them. You see, they got dirty. While in progress, they fell out of my bag at Red Robin one night while we were having dinner after knit chat. I didn't notice, and when I retrieved them from the restaurant a week later, they had clearly been left on the floor for a long time and were soaked with nasty mop water. In the picture below you can see the dirty parts on the outside compared to the part of the sock in the middle of the picture where I had joined a fresh clean ball.

After about two straight days of washing they were cleaner, but still discolored. Enter the magic that is Jacquard dye. I pulled out my little pot of "Lilac" and after half an hour, I had this:

Dying is seriously magical because you put the dye in the water, and the water turns a very dark version of whatever color you are using. Then you put the yarn or fabric in and the dye gets sucked up into it. The water goes back to being clear once all the dye has been sucked up. It's pretty cool. And look, you can't tell they were ever dirty.

The pattern will make you extremely comfortable with twisted stitches and 1x1 cables. Also, the cable pattern is only charted, so if you have problems reading charts you might want to brush up on your skills before attempting this one.

These are one of my biggest knitting accomplishments. I would definitely rate this as harder than most of the sweaters I've made. Finish anything big lately?

On the reading front, I have dropped everything to start The Casual Vacancy. Yes, I am a sheep.

Go check out other people finished projects that Tami has rounded up.