Today we are talking about….Pisa and socks! I have a huge blog post about my adventures at Wonderwool Wales to go up, but I’m keeping that to myself for now. Have you ever discovered that by making something public, it loses some of the shine on it? The day out was one of the best days of my adult life, and I’m holding the memories close to me before making them public so that I can cherish them for a little longer.
Pisa Socks
So, Pisa! Last September, our very lovely friends Patrick and Elly had a wedding of sorts. Although they’d already been married for a year, they got all of their friends together in Tuscany and we spent a weekend together. I took a few extra days off work, and John and I spent a couple of days braving terrifying mountain roads, eating glorious gelato, and traipsing through the delightful city of Pisa. The tradition of buying sock yarn as a souvenir continued, and when we got back I cast on a new pair of socks.
I get an hour for lunch in my job, which still feels new after a couple of years of self-employment, even though I’ve now been here for nearly a year! I like to spend half of this time knitting, and the simplest thing to knit are socks! They were a bit of a trial to be honest. I cast on sixty stitches at the toe, knitted to my heel, did a fish lips kiss heel, and then all the trouble started.
The first time I knitted the cuff stockinette with a small ribbed section at the end. Didn’t like it, frogged back to the toe(!). Then I knitted a ribbed top of the foot, and fully ribbed cuff. Tried them on, didn’t like them. Frogged back to the toe(!). The third time was the charm, as I knitted to just about the heel, then did a 2×2 rib from there. Simple!
Project Details
Yarn: Calzepiu
Pattern: No specific sock pattern, but Fish Lips Kiss heel
Toe cast on: Judy’s magic cast on
Cuff bind off: Jeny’s surprisingly stretchy bind off
Of course, it wasn’t simple. Working on them for half an hour a day meant that it took me months to get an FO. I started them on the 11th of October 2016, and finished on the 15th of April 2017. Now that they’re finished, however, they’ve joined the ever growing ranks of my sock drawer, and will make me think of my friends with fondness whenever I wear them!
Much love,
Corrie
Calzepiu
The story of the yarn is itself rather wonderful. Patrick used to buy yarn from this place as a teenager, and recommended it to me. We tried to go there around midday, but Pisa is very continental in that everywhere closes for like four hours around lunch. We hung out at the Leaning Tower for a while until it reopened.
Once successfully in, I realised they spoke exactly no English, and my Italian was limited to what I’d quickly learned on Duolingo before the trip. AKA, not much. Through pointing at my feet, miming knitting and holding out indiscriminate amounts of Euros, I managed to escape with a ball of sock yarn. I even, somehow, managed to match the yarn to my outfit, thoroughly unintentionally. We celebrated my success with yet more ice cream!
*Elly runs a rather wonderful blog from Sydney, which you can find over here.
