Recently, I asked my Twitter friends for knitting podcast recommendations. It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to knitting podcasts (for reasons I shan’t get into here, for the reasons are varied and likely to incite flaming), but I figured that starting again might inspire some knitting mojo. Several people recommended The Knitmore Girls Podcast. I downloaded the very first episode and liked it immediately. I’m extremely picky about podcasts (ok, and picky about everything), so I was delighted to find this one. I’m still working my way through the episodes–there are quite a few, and I think I’m still in the first dozen. But I’m really enjoying them so far.
There was a lot of sock talk in the first couple of episodes and I found myself inspired to knit a sock. This is good, since according to my Ravelry projects page, I hadn’t knit a pair of socks since April of 2009. 
I cruised around Ravelry and found the Duckies pattern, which looked fairly straightforward: easy lace, size 3 dpns, yay. I cast on and a week or so later, I had a finished pair of socks! My sock knitting mojo has been found!
@ Ravelry
I knit these in Dream in Color Smooshy in colorway Strange Harvest. You might remember that I previously cast on this yarn for a leaf lace scarf, which ultimately was frogged, mainly because I just wasn’t feeling the yarn/pattern combination as much as I thought I was. Also, I think in my Ravelry browsing I noticed how nice Smooshy looks knit up as socks, so I figured I’d make good use of it.
(oh, as a sidenote, I’m forcing myself to knit from my stash because I’ve been on a yarn diet since December. The yarn diet will be broken extravagantly on May 1 when I attend Maryland Sheep & Wool for the first time! eeee! But more about that later, I’m sure!)
Back to the Duckies. The pattern is great–I have no complaints about it. I did have some issues with the first sock, but they were all my fault. First, I didn’t swatch because they’re socks and I rarely swatch anyway, but if I had, I would have known to go down a needle size. I used the size called for in the pattern–US 3–but if I knit the pattern again, I’ll go down to a size 2. I like my socks stretchy, but not *too* loose. When I knit the first one, the cuff was actually falling down my ankle and that was really irritating. I wound up picking up stitches along the cuff (the cast-on edge), which turned out to be doubly irritating. But I made it work in the end and the second sock is much lovelier than the first. Lesson learned: I prefer my socks knit on size 1s or 2s.
Smooshy is lovely to work with. I’m reminded of my other Smooshy project, currently in hibernation (the Shipwreck Shawl, which I’m honestly tempted to frog). I would use Smooshy for socks again, though I’m interested to see how they’ll wear over time. Also, I have quite a bit of yarn left over–I probably could make knee socks from one skein.
aww they look so nice! I haven’t knit myself socks in forever. I really, really, REALLY have a hard time with second-anything-syndrome
love the color too 
I still think the Shipwreck Shawl is one of the coolest looking shawls… is it really that bad/hard or is it just loss of interest?
Thanks!
I still like the look of Shipwreck, but I know I put it down in the middle of one of the charts, so I might have forgotten where I left off…and it requires so much concentration! It’s not super tough, but my brain just doesn’t have the tolerance for real lace anymore, I think!