Ray's Christmas Socks

After knitting so many kid garments, I decided that I needed a change of pace.  The next item I'm going to nock off the list is Ray's Christmas socks.  Naturally I do not have a pattern in mind but I do have the book entitled "Sensational Knitted Socks" by Charlene Schurch.  The book truly is a must have book for avid sock knitters.  While it does not have any one sock pattern spelled out for you, it does have lots of stitch patterns and charts for you to decide exactly what you want your sock to look like in the yarn of your choosing.  The book also contains feet measurements for various shoe sizes ranging from children to men and women in narrow, medium and wide widths.  Invaluable. 

First did a gauge swatch in sock yarn on US1's and found that I get 10 stitches to the inch.  I then found my husbands shoe size the finished measurements.  Next, I decided on a 5 stitch ribbing pattern which called for 90 stitches.  Because I want my socks to match when its all said and done I need to cast on at the same point in the color run for both socks but I need to know what my color run is.  I started pulling out the yarn from the center of my ball and wrote down the colors until I had found where the colors start repeating themselves.  My yarn has the following color repeat: leaf green, blue, brown, blue, forest green, blue, light green, blue, tan, blue, light green and brown.

As mentioned above, I do not have a pattern so I got out a piece of paper and wrote down all of the essentials for the sock.  Gauge, stitch pattern, number of repeats,  length of the leg portion, the total length of the sock, where in the color run to cast on.  Stuff like that. 
Now that the hard part of is out of the way, all I have left to do is knit them.  Easier said than done because my husband wears a size 13.  Wish me luck!