Magic Socks: The Beginning

I consider myself the type of person who likes a challenge, which, overall, isn't a bad thing. It helps me learn and grow, I think I'm aware of my abilities and limitations more than most people, and others tend to appreciate someone who doesn't back away from something just because it's scary. 

However, there are times when this aspect of my personality becomes frustrating. Let me share my current example.

Logan, my husband (which still feels really weird to say but I love it), has a pair of socks that I knit him a while back. If you've been around for a while, you may remember them.

They turned out to be a bigger hit than I expected, since he wears them all the time. This makes me super happy because I love making Logan things, but it's hard to get him to wear knitted stuff.

After noticing that Logan enjoys wearing his socks to Magic the Gathering tournaments because they're special--which everyone knows improves your luck--I decided that I wanted to make him a pair of Magic socks. And I wanted to design them myself, not modify a pattern.

Easy enough, right? Socks aren't that hard to knit, and Logan doesn't like super fancy designs anyway, so they'd air on the basic side. What a great way to start designing! I had this idea for a super cool pair of socks featuring the symbol of his favorite element in Magic, water.

Image from wiki.mtgsalvation.com

After some research, I discovered that the best way to make that happen was to use intarsia knitting -- a technique that allows the knitter to create pictures. Below is an example.

Image from purlbee.com

Well, it turns out that intarsia knitting is a bit of a pain in the rear to handle and attempting to learn it on a sock is pure folly. Did that stop me? Nope! I got a small portion of the water droplet done this evening.

You may be thinking, "Autumn, that looks pretty good! Why do you say it's a pain in the rear and you're crazy for trying?" Because, dear Reader, the sock actually looks like this.

And that means I'm doing it right.

But you better believe that I'm going to finish it, because it's going to be awesome. I just have to keep an extra careful eye on the cats!