Autumn Leaves

Many of the trees roundabout Exit 151 have been late in turning, but they've made up for that by dropping their leaves all at once this weekend. In between Sisyphean leaf-raking sessions, I finally finished a pair of Embossed Leaves socks by Mona Schmidt (in IK Winter 2005, also in Favorite Socks) that was started during Socktoberfest [cough] last year.



There are mods, of course. I love a good leaf motif, so much so that I continued the leaves on the heel flap, working p2tog and ssp on the wrong side to correspond with k2tog and ssk on the right side. I didn't want to break the yarn, so the cuff has plain 1x1 ribbing and a conventional flap heel. I varied the pattern by a half drop on one sock, because knitters can. (The highly embossed pattern tends to close up, so the socks are on DIY blockers for their close ups.)



Usually I find spiral toes uncomfortable (my foot ends in a wedge, not a pencil point), plus I tend to think gathered toe stitches look unfinished, an ungainly recourse for those who don't know how to graft. But this sock has such a pretty variation on a spiral toe that I caved and used the specified toe on the first sock. Sure enough, it was a horrible fit. After consulting New Pathways, I re-knit that toe, then put a standard flat toe on the second sock for comparison purposes. We'll see if pretty can stand up with practical.



Overall, I enjoyed the pattern and the crazy marled yarn, Fortissima Colori Socka Color in colorway 2419. I plan to knit lots more – needless to add, the handsome stitch pattern would be more prominent in a solid, semi-solid, or heathered yarn.