Spinning Sunday: Handspun FO Edition

Today's edition of Spinning Sunday comes not with shots of handspun or handspun in progress but rather something actually knit with handspun (it's rare, I know! I'm doing my best to remedy that). You may remember that I've made some reference in recent posts to a pair of handspun socks that I'd been working on. I couldn't show them to you before because they were a surprise, but they were presented to the recipient yesterday, so I can finally reveal them.

Here they are! As of yesterday, these are now gracing the feet of Steven. I'm sure you're wondering what he did to deserve a pair of handknit, handspun socks. Well let me tell you. A couple of months ago, when he thought he was soon to be leaving town, he did a bit of fiber destashing, and apparently he thought I was worthy of some really nice stuff. I haven't had a chance to document it on the blog just yet, but boy did I get an extraordinarily generous surprise from him -- in the form of samples of uber-luxurious fiber. We're talking silk, silk and cashmere, and yak (or was it bison? it's super soft, whatever it is). I haven't yet worked up the courage to try to spin any of it yet, but I've been petting it plenty.

This unexpected windfall was such an amazing surprise. I knew that the proper way to say thanks was with wool, and if you know Steven, you know that he loves handknit socks but rarely makes any for himself. I had the perfect man-friendly skein of superwash merino sock yarn in the stash and I knew it would be perfect for him.

Thankfully, Steven prefers ankle socks -- I say thankfully because he has large feet, or at least large relative to the feet I'm used to knitting for! With 80 stitches cast on, I kept it simple: an inch of 2x2 ribbing and a stockinette foot with a wedge toe. For such simple socks, they did take a while! Here they are with a pair of my socks on top for reference.

In any case, when I gave them to Steven, he immediately took off his shoes and socks and put them on, despite the fact that it was 80+ degrees outside. I think that means they're a success!