Resolving a Case of Second Sock Syndrome

Those of us who love to knit socks are aware of the dread Second Sock Syndrome: upon completion of the first sock, new horizons beckon, and the second sock never gets made. I rarely have trouble with this, starting the second sock before even weaving in the ends of the first sock, but I recently unearthed a project bag with one finished sock, and one not even half an inch in length.

The pair was started in pre-Ravelry days, so I have no record of when it was started, no pattern notes, and no idea what the yarn was. But I love a puzzle. First clue: the second sock was still on the needles -- and metal ones at that -- so, before I discovered how much easier wooden dpns are on arthritic joints. A quick check revealed that they were size 0 dpns.

Needles: US 0 (1.25 mm)

The yarn was obviously fingering weight, possibly even light fingering weight, and put up in 100-gram skeins. Given that, and the pattern of variegation, and I'm pretty sure this was a skein of Trekking XXL. Colorway? Let's just say blue, and a quick check of Ravelry confirms the likely color number.

Yarn: Zitron's Trekking XXL in 77 Blue

Pattern? I expected this to be hard, but when I typed descriptive words into Ravelry's pattern search engine, the first result was a pattern by a designer I love, and that I already owned a copy of.

Pattern: Wendy D. Johnson's Toe-Up Feather and Fan Socks

Now then. Before making the second sock, I tried on the first one. It fit perfectly. So what had the roadblock been? I suspect it was the lack of Ravelry - I had made significant changes to the pattern as written, and had no notes for what I had done. I went for a round toe, something I've been coincidentally been wanting to try recently.

Mods: round toe, sewn bind-off

A quick search on "how to knit a round toe," checked the results against the finished sock, and I was ready to go. Counted the number of rows between toe-end and heel-begin in the finished sock, and mimicked that as well. Made the rest of the sock as the pattern suggested, except for a sewn bind-off, which I had clearly done on the first sock and liked the look of.