I began my first pair of socks from Nancy Bush's "Vintage Knitted Socks" book last night. I went with a simple pattern - the "Gentleman's Plain Winter Sock." I did that because I'm using the new Austermann Step sockyarn I bought back before Christmas.

The only alteration I'm making to the pattern is that I'm going to make the foot slightly shorter. I think I must knit tighter than Ms. Bush and her testers; the sizing for a man's sock (in terms of the circumference) will fit my foot. Usually on the ladies' sock patterns I go up a needle size (or alter the pattern to fit in another repeat to make them wider). That said, Nancy Bush's sock patterns are probably my FAVORITE sock patterns; they're more detailed and thoughtful (in terms of things like having decreases to fit the sock to the ankle) than some. (And she's just one of my favorite designers, period, like Cheryl Oberle and Veronique Avery and, among the more "amateur"* folks, Alexandra Virgiel.)

(*"amateur" in the sense that they don't make the big bucks for their designs yet, not "amateur" in the sense of quality)

I like the pattern; it's simple, but a bit different (longer ribbed section) than some of the other "simple" socks I've made.

Eventually, I'd like to make most of the socks in the book - I like the idea of using vintage patterns, of honoring the people who "came before," even if their names are not known, by knitting modern socks to old patterns.