Happy Autumn Equinox! What better way to ring in the new season than to share a pair of newly completed fall socks? It took me an entire year to finish these socks, which hibernated post-heel for quite a while. Fortunately I had made them big, so they fit well. Phew! (Note to self: Never start a knitting project for a child and leave it to hibernate for a year. This is generally a bad idea.)

I finished my son’s Art of Autumn socks over the weekend, and I urged him to show off his flexibility so that we could get a nice portrait/sock combo picture. I love it! It’s going on the wall somewhere in the house.

Jacob was a breech baby. In the womb he was positioned perfectly upright with his legs in a V and his feet by his head. When he was born, one leg kept kicking upwards, and we had to see a specialist to make sure he didn’t develop any hip issues. For a while, he had to wear two diapers to help support his hip. In the end, his hips were fine but the flexibility remained, so naturally I took him to baby gymnastics classes and enrolled him in a program for toddlers as soon as he was old enough. He now does recreational gymnastics, Tang Soo Do karate and performs on a karate team where he combines the two. It’s so much fun to watch!

This self-striping autumn rainbow perfection is a colorway called The Art of Autumn (hence my project name), by none other than the brilliant dyer Carol of Havirland Yarns. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I need a full-sized Havirland sweater. Her colors always speak to me, but also Carol is simply an all-around decent, down-to-earth human with great integrity, so she’s always high on my list.

I did not use a pattern for these socks. I worked them two-at-a-time, as I always do, by following the instructions in the book Toe-Up Two-at-a-Time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oates (shown below). My son has very wide feet, so I cast on 12 stitches per sock and increased as is done in the sample socks of the book until the toe bed fit him well. For the heels, I worked FLK’s (Fish Lips Kiss Heels), another one of my go-to’s. I had him try them on throughout the process and stopped where he liked the length. For the cuff I worked a twisted rib for approximately one inch and bound off with Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off. The heels, toes and cuffs are worked in Tosh Sock in the colorway Antique Lace.