Socks of Joy and cleverness!

I'm slightly obsessed with socks.  I think they're somehow the epitome of knitting.  As if, once you knit socks, you've finally arrived.  Keep in mind I only started to feel this way after I figured out how to knit socks, but I digress...

The benevolence and patience that is my husband, tells people he knows when I'm knitting socks because my language takes a turn for the worse.  Heels in particular make me cuss.

These are some of my early attempts.  They all have their little flaws, but I love them because I made them.  All by myself!  The obnoxious pink and purple one is from my very first pair.

Now, this next pair is a stroke of self-proclaimed genius on my part.  I won't tell you how much I paid for the sock yarn in question, because you will fall over.  What I WILL tell you is that I will never buy this yarn again.  I walked through the heels of these socks on their very second outing.  Since this is some of the prettiest yarn to which I've ever succumbed, to say I was upset doesn't quite cover it. 

Enter Handspun Yarn ex Machina!  The new heels on these socks are handspun, navajo-plied Wensleydale.  Wensleydale is a coarser wool than you'd ever buy in a commercial garment.  Its staple length (the length of the individual hairs) is roughly 8 inches, categorizing this as a longwool.  Merino, by comparison, has a staple length of around 1-1.5 inches.  The long long staple length of the Wensleydale means that it will wear like iron.  The heels of these socks will probably be unearthed, in totally wearable condition, by archeologists after Battlestar Galactic becomes our Bob Dylan soundtracked future.   In short - I'm awesome and these heels please me to no end.  

Lastly, we have a heavenly slice of someone else's genius.  These are knit from self-striping, self-patterning yarn, handdyed by The Painted Tiger.  They are brilliant!  I'd lost my knitting mojo (knit-jo?) for a couple weeks, until I saw this yarn.  It's so not me, I tend to hate self-patterning sock yarn, but I could not resist this particular siren's song.  I took this picture approximately one and one-half days after the yarn arrived at my door.  Bliss.

Now, tell me, doesn't that make you want to knit socks, too?