Sock it to me

A call to help from serious bloggers - how do you take attractive pictures of your own feet in socks? Mine always come out looking like my legs were by Botero. They're not that bad, honest. (Or maybe I'm just in denial.) Until I learn better sock-photo technique, thank God for the Crop tool.

These are the most recent socks I knit, but with some of the first yarn I bought. It was my very first yarn expedition in New York. I googled "Yarn Store New York" or some such and landed on Alison's blog. Wow, I thought, imagine that, here's a woman who has a whole blog about knitting; how cool. (Reader, I was naive.) Alison had taken a trip to New York and listed all the yarn stores she'd visited, and thus I made my way to Downtown Yarns, which was not at all conveniently located to my residence, but sounded properly hip (into image? me? oh no). My journey was rewarded with some cherry-red alpaca and a pattern that replicated almost identically a sweater I'd loved that burned up in our house fire. (Another story for another day.)

And there, by the cash register, just happened to be some sale yarn that had my name on it. In fact, it literally had my name on it (hm, somehow I knew that my pretext of anonymity on this blog wouldn't last long). So I bought it, thinking a) it would make a nice sweater and b) one big skein would surely be enough for the airy, short-sleeved sweater I would make of it. (See "naive," above.)

Fortunately it sat in the stash so long that I was able to learn what sock yarn was, and, equally importantly, how to make socks, before I picked it up one day in a train riding through the Alps and cast on my toe. (Since I have already confessed being into image, I will also confess that I would have cast on at least an hour earlier had I not had to overcome my reluctance to pull out a knitting book to find the instructions for casting on from the toe up. Somehow when you're sitting on a fast train through the Alps it seems far more sophisticated just to whip out your needles and cast on from memory. There is something rather, well, touristy about rifling awkwardly through the pages of a book - a book in English, no less - to figure out what you're supposed to be doing. But sock-lust finally won out over sophistication.)

Alas, I fear that these socks' beautiful crisp colors have gotten lost, or leeched, in the translation from iPhoto to Internet. Yet pale shadow though they be, I aver that these photos justify my ever-firmer preference for the short-row heel (see how the stripes match up?). As for the self-styled sock photo - just wait til my sock blockers come in for some real blog fodder. Until then, well, at least I can furnish proof that I knit both of them.