The Dog Days of Knitting

Every August I hit a bit of a knitting slump. I guess I thought I'd avoid it this year with my colorwork sock challenge but the dog days of knitting slowed me down. In one month I only managed one pair of stranded socks and one pair of socks using Elann's Esprit cotton/elastic yarn.

Here are the Esprit socks. I really like the feel of Esprit yarn on my feet and I've been experimenting with needle size and yardage. This time I cast on 56 sts on size 4 (US) dpns and used almost one skein of Ruby and one skein of Deep Black. I don't think I will go smaller than size 4 needles and I'm happy I can make a pair of socks with only two skeins.

Here are my final stranded socks for the challenge. These are the Flora socks from Barb Brown's book on knee socks and I used Knit Picks' Stroll undyed and Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in Fireberry (one of my Scavenger Hunt prizes). The cute sock project bag was another prize from ItsBrynn on Ravelry.

So I only knit five pairs in two months when I was hoping for seven or eight. Here they are all together.