My Portland Gussets

My Portland Gussets in blue - I am very happy with these!

Yarn: Uschi Sockengarn*
Needles: 2.0 mm (15 cm short DPNs, very useful!)
Pattern: Yarnissima/Three Irish Girls
Inpiration: Ignorant Bliss who makes the most gorgeous things!

I was knitting both at the same time, with two sets of DPNs which went swimmingly until I realised that I'd forgotten the five gusset decreases on the other edge (Chart 2). The instructions even say, very clearly: "Don't forget the gusset decreases" - which I had read, and processed, and proceeded to not take any notice of, as you do. I was going to highlight them in yellow, forgot, and there you are: I got to five inches from the toe up of BOTH socks so of course I had to rip them down. Unforunately those decreases start quite early on. Darn. That ought to teach me.

The nice thing was that I really enjoyed knitting these - and this way I got to do a bit more knitting, har-de-har! The pattern is lovely and relatively easy to follow. The only difficulty lies in remembering if you already knit those rows without increases or decreases. Sounds easy but I kept losing track (knitting in front of the telly has its disadvantages) and had to count rows from the last increase or decrease.

I was a bit nervous about trying these for my first pair of socks in something like twenty years or so. I had knitted socks before (all of one pair, woohoo. Yep, one single, lonesome one) but at the time hadn't appreciated that walking around in them would put them to quite a bit of wear - so I'd only gone and picked completely unsuitable yarn. The couple of holes from the first few wears very quickly turned into one big hole that extended to almost the entire length and width of the sock, that is to say: its entire sole... whoops.
I had lost my mojo in terms of sock knitting and hadn't attempted another pair since.

Another reason was that I hadn't actually encountered any proper sock wool back then, and remained blithely unaware that there was such a thing. I still wouldn't know today if it wasn't for the Internet. Isn't the spreading of knowledge a wonderful thing?
I love the Internet - I started using it pretty early on, with one of those modems that made this lovely doodely noise. Hearing that made me feel so empowered! It wasn't a 28.8 (or whatever) but the next one up 33.6 (my decimals could be way off), so a bit of time before the advent of broadband.
I am finding it particularly wonderful where crafts are concerned. What did we do before we could check things out on Ravelry, or Knitty, or just google stuff? Gosh, all of that was such a huge Effort! Reference libraries and buying books, or latching on to people who might know a bit more than you - wringing them dry for every last little bit of knowledge...

But anyway. Socks, first pair thereof in a long time. Very pleased. Downright chuffed in fact! ...must make them again: in pink, I feel The Need! Which will, in turn, necessitate more yarn buying (oh no! My evergrowing stash! Best wait a bit)...

* I got this sock yarn from a German supermarket so I can't provide a link. It's nice sturdy yarn.