In The Pink

One of the girls I work with is a young lady from Sweden. She was telling me about a pair of slipper socks her grandmother had knit for her and how much she loved them. Unfortunately, they were beginning to wear out and she wondered if I could make her a replacement pair.

I told her to bring the socks in to work one day and I’d see what I could do. I was really looking forward to seeing what a Swedish grandmother had knitted for her granddaughter and had visions of some stranded works of art, something traditional. Imagine my surprise when she brought in the socks, a pair of 2x2 ribbed, very basic socks. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. As well, P had been “darning” the socks… with thread, basically just sewing the sides of the holes together, just so she could get a little more wear out of them. We DID laugh at that!

The socks were easy to replicate, and so I took notes, counted stitches, asked what colour she wanted and went to the LYS. She wanted pink socks, not baby pink, but more of a magenta pink. That’s what she’s getting (it was very difficult to photograph the colour; they really are a magenta pink, quite a strong colour).

The socks are worked on 46 stitches, not a multiple of 4, so there’s a row of four knit stitches at the back of the leg. She wanted her grandmother’s socks replicated, that’s what grandma did so that’s what I’m doing. After the gusset shaping, though, I’ve gone down to 44 stitches for the foot, which will make the toe easier to work.

The yarn I’m using is Pingouin Le Yarn 3, 80% acrylic, 20% wool and I’m working the socks on 3.5 mm needles. Originally, I bought two balls of the yarn, thinking one ball would suffice for one sock. It doesn’t look like that will be the case and I bought the last two balls of this colour, so I picked up a ball of off white as well, and I’ll work the toes in the contrasting colour. She’s okay with that.

She’s excited about getting a new pair of slipper socks for the coming winter and knowing that she’s excited makes the knitting so much more pleasurable. Incidentally, I am writing out the pattern and will make it available through Ravelry for anyone who wants it.