Knitting Socks

I've got a pair of socks on the go on my knitting needles. I bought yarn in a small shop in Mittersill, Austria, during our family vacation last August, one skein for each of my daughters and one for myself. I know the same yarn can be purchased locally, but there's something about buying a product close to where it came from.... I've restarted these socks twice so far, with different patterns. The first pattern I tried just did not make sense to me, so I switched to another, which seems to be working better!

The pattern I'm using can be found on Ravelry: it's the Vanilla Socks pattern by Carle' Dehning. What makes this pattern unique is that it has an afterthought heel. When you are at the heel spot, you knit with waste yarn for half a round, and then continue knitting the tube. When you are done the length of the sock, you go back to the heel.

Because daughter S wants these socks to be as long as the yarn will allow, I put the ankle stitches on stitch holders, and knit the heel first. Next I'll start sock #2, and go until it's an equal length, and then knit them both as far as the yarn will allow.

They have been taking longer than I expected, but that's partly due to the pattern failures and my restarts. Now that I've got this one almost done, the rest should go faster!