The Pain......

.... of my left hand is stopping me from knitting today!  I'm so sad.  I'm not used to being unable to knit.  It's my hobby of last resort.  When I'm in too much pain to sit at a sewing machine or cut out fabric then I can lie on my sofa and knit.  The knitting soothes and calms me enough to relax enough to breathe through the pain.  But when my hands are screaming at me to stop - especially when you consider I take LOADS of pain killers - I know it is time to stop knitting.  Luckily my right hand is fine, so I'm tempted to try some hand sewing.  It's worth a try.  However, maybe it's safer to just spend the day reading.  I've recently upped my pain killers and during the increasing stage I've been a bit unfocussed.  I'm sure to stab myself if I try to do some hand stitching!

Luckily before my hand gave up the ghost I finished my stripey green socks.

The stripes are not quite matching up, but it is unlikely that anyone will get close enough to point that out to me.

I used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off, as I always do now.  I knitted a 2" cuff of 1x1 ribbing and this is enough to keep my socks up without pinching.  The main reason I love hand knitted socks is that, as you can see, I have deep ankles and large calves.  This means that shop bought socks nearly always pinch at the cuff.  The video below shows how to perform the bind off and is filmed by Cat Bordhi who wrote the book I got my sock pattern from, Personal Footprints for Insouciant Sock Knitters.

This style of socks is perfect for me and I'm working my way through a pile of loud and fun yarns in order to build up my basic stock of socks, so I can throw my shop bought ones away at last.  This pattern is very simple and a basic stocking stitch sock is perfect for busy yarns.  Once I work my way through this pile, I will probably start to experiment again with styles and patterns.

Until then, get used to this type of FO Friday!  Socks that are comfortable, simple and fun make me smile, and that has to be a good thing!  If you want to see more interesting finished objects, click on one of the buttons below.