These please me

This is the most-recently-finished object. (I just Kitchenered the toe of the second sock about a half-hour ago). These are socks I'd been thinking about for a while, ever since I saw (and later, read) Twelfth Night, where there was the scene where Malvolio, besotted with Olivia (because of a letter he believed she sent him, declaring her love), decides to take on a more whimsical, or perhaps, more fashion-forward persona, and dons (among other things) "Yellow stockings, cross-gartered."

(In the production I saw - which was reset to South Louisiana of the 1890s - Malvolio wore bright yellow socks with his trouser cuffs rolled, and the "cross garters" was reinterpreted as braces - suspenders - worn with the trousers).

I love the play and particularly was amused by the character of Malviolo, who is dour and rather Eeyore-like, but becomes somewhat antic when he thinks that Olivia loves him. (Ah, how many of us have done foolish things, and in some ways betrayed our fundamental natures, in the mistaken belief that someone fancied us!)

So, ever since then, I wanted to make a pair of "yellow stockings, cross-gartered." My original thought was to do something with cable crossings, but when I bought the first Cookie A sock book, I realized her "Wanida" pattern would pretty perfectly fill the bill - all I needed was a yellow yarn. (I chose not to make the stockings tall; while knee-sock height would be more truly Shakespearean, the original Malvolio I saw wore regular trouser-length socks, and those are the usual sort of socks I wear...so I knit the pattern as written. If I had had more yarn and had been thinking about it, I might have done a third or maybe even third and fourth repeat of the 32-row pattern on the leg to make them taller.


Still, they please me.



The yarn on these is a merino wool/bamboo blend. The bamboo makes the yarn very shiny and I hope it will cut down a bit on the warmth of the wool. 

I'll probably be the only one who knows the story behind them when I wear them - unless I happen to run into one of you out and about at a time when I'm wearing them - but still, it matters to me, even if I'm the only one who knows or cares.



Geeky knitting. I love geeky knitting. I love being able to combine two things that make me happy, and to have that little secret knowledge of what the pattern actually means.