Argyle Socks of Doom

I did it.  I finished those monster socks before Walker's office Christmas party on Saturday and not without a few tears of frustration.  Never again will I make the mistake of felting these beautiful socks.  Never, never.
Here are the finished socks:

Nice, huh?  At least all that work yielded some lovely socks.  I was starting to doubt it when I produced this tangled mess.  #&^%@$!! is the appropriate term, I think:

At any one time during the leg portion of the sock, I had 9 different strands going.  Each diamond had its own strand of yarn and each line of gray had it's own strand and allll of them had to be wrapped around each other to avoid gaps in the fabric.  Boo, intarsia.

This also meant that all of the argyle portions of the sock had to be knit flat and sewn together later, so you get the double fun of purling colorwork and finishing seams.  So to get the awesome ventilation flaps above, I knit the foot diamond on one needle and then did the heel/heel flap on another.  A good design feature for people whose feet get too sweaty?  Maybe.  Didn't apply to Walker, so I sewed those seams up.  Along with all of the little strands hanging out of the ventilation flap.  And the back seam (not pictured). 

And all the ends of the aforementioned strands.  This is the pile of ends when I finished all my sewing:
I'm telling you, argyle is not for the faint of heart, especially argyle socks.  Beautiful?  Yes.  Labor intensive and somewhat maddening?  Absolutely.  These socks will be cherished (or else).



Here is a shot of Walker modeling them for me:

Ooh, ahh, what pretty feet he has...worth every hour spent and every curse uttered.
Almost perfect, almost.

Walker has complained in the past that my cast-on was too tight so I overcompensated with these and now the ribbing at the top is much too loose.  These beautiful socks fall down his ankles :(  I have been trying to think of a way to fix this--sewing in some elastic, cutting off the ribbing (a little scary--what if the rest unravels??), and picking up some stitches from the bottom of the ribbing and knitting another layer on tighter needles.  So far the last option is the front-runner and I may attempt that this weekend.  Unless anyone else has any other/better solutions.  I wouldn't want these fabulous socks to sit at the bottom of the drawer because they are uncomfortable to wear.  Please help :(

At least now I'm all finished with my Christmas knitting.  Just a little bit of baking left to do and I am ready for Christmas to arrive.  Bring it on!  I think our cats are a little excited about it, too.  Arty did some climbing in the Christmas tree this weekend:

And one blending in with the lights:

He is definitely the prettiest ornament on our tree.  I just hope he doesn't ruin too many of the others.  I didn't put up any that were very breakable and I anchored the tree to the back door, so here's hoping for a safe and in-tact Christmas tree!

Next week I'll hopefully have a little more selfish knitting to show you.  I'm working on a couple of projects for myself that I am very excited about. 

Cheers,

-Allie