I have been feeling a little guilty about the Hurricane Socks. The packages don’t have to be mailed until Labor Day, but so many folks already finished that I am starting to feel like an Underachiever. To combat the feeling of inadequacy, I am making up the pattern for my Hurricane Pal’s sock.

I began the development process by renaming my yarn of choice (Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Pioneer) to “Squall.” The mixture of brown, grey and blue suggests the color of the sky when the first squall lines come in from the Gulf. I found it apt.

As most of you know, I like my sock yarn knit at a smaller gauge than the wrapper usually suggests – I think it makes for a sturdier and longer lasting sock. I’ve settled on a gauge of 9sts to 1 inch for Shepherd Sock, so I picked up my needles, cast on 80 stitches and was off. The ribbing went very well, but when I started my pattern: a disturbing pooling thing happened.

All the blue is on ONE SIDE. Dum Dum Dumm.

I considered switching to another stitch pattern (I came up with three before beginning the sock), but one of them was entirely too complex. I’m not sure if my Hurricane Pal is into making socks that take that much concentration (in this swap, we make one half of the sock pair and then send the yarn and the pattern to our pal to make the other sock), so I decided to play it safe.* The third stitch pattern wanted different ribbing (K3, P2 instead of K2, P2) so I yanked it all out and started over with a new 80 stitches and the new stitch pattern. Two pattern reps into the leg, the pooling thing was still happening. I yanked it out, dropped four stitches from the total (it will still fit my pal’s foot just fine – the 80 stitches easily stretched to 10″), and went back to my original leg pattern. With great success.

Pretty! And swirly, just like a storm. Yay!

If you’re interested, I’ll have the pattern on the patterns page when the sock is finished.

Angus is better: he eats a fair amount of turkey, chicken and brown rice and has more energy. You can tell that life is returning to its default state by the length of my posts.

*Seriously, I am already making her knit these at an impossibly small gauge. I need to cut her a break.