Silk Road Socks

I have lots of sock books, piles and piles of them. When a new one comes out I reflexively buy it. I like to read them, admire the photos, study the designs and techniques used, and occasionally even knit a sock from them. So when I read that Hunter of Violently Domestic was going to publish a new sock book, naturally the reflex kicked in and I pre-ordered it.

I received my hard copy last week and Silk Road Socks is beautiful. It's not just that the designs are wonderful, or that it contains interesting facts about the Silk Road, rug styles and construction, weaving, and so on. Every detail is beautiful, from the closeup photos of the socks, knit with gorgeous yarns, posed on matching rugs, to the illustrations, to the fonts used. This book is perfect in every way.

I was showing Silk Road Socks to The Spouse, forcing him to admire the wonderful photography, and he said, "You should make me this one." This one was Gördes, the first pattern in the book, and as I eyed the photo the first thing that struck me was, Look at all those purls and twisted stitches. My poor arm! The second thing was, How can I modify this 64-st pattern to fit him? It's an elegant design with charted patterns worked twice around the leg so that the edges mesh. No room for simply adding stitches. Thankfully Hunter has a section in the intro called "Resizing the Right Way", which is applicable not only to her patterns but to sock patterns in general.

I'm still reluctant to start a Gördes sock project for The Spouse - if I made this sock it would be for me! And what about all my other projects? So many wonderful sock patterns, so little time...