Elven Woods Socks (and a Farewell to Ravelry)

I've finally finished up my Elven Woods Socks -- I have no idea why these took so long! I do love Olivia's sock patterns; this is my second finished pair, and I have several of her patterns that I'm eager to try. They're also very reasonable (and some were free on Ravelry).

I've been on a bit of Tolkien knitting kick lately, having just finished up my Grey Havens sweater (pictures forthcoming, but don't hold your breath -- it's too hot to take pictures just now).

I knit these with gifted yarn that happily matched up on both socks (except for a patch on the top of the feet, which perplexes me!). I had no idea how to ensure that the colors changed in the same place on each sock, but I ended up not needing to do anything. I just started the 2nd sock where I left off on the 1st!

Overall I'm quite pleased with these -- they're comfy and turned out rather well. But I do have some regrets! I opted to do the lace pattern 3 times instead of as written, and it ended up longer on the calf than I'd have liked. They have a tendency to sag a little, and the lace pattern doesn't really stand out as much as it would with a solid yarn. 

Also, I thought I'd be clever and add the little ribbing detail on the top of the foot. What I didn't realize was that the pattern included a pretty little mini-lace pattern near the toe. I wish I'd done that, instead! And to top it all off, the ribbing ended up being a royal pain on the 2nd sock because I forgot to start it in the right spot and had to do some strategic (read: time consuming and tedious) frogging to fix that.

I knit these with 2.0mm needles, which is standard for me -- I usually find women's medium-sized socks to be too large. I also made the feet a little longer than usual, because I've been finding that when I knit a Fish Lips Kiss heel there is a tendency for the heel to end up sliding down the foot. 

All in all, I now have a cozy pair of socks that were enjoyable to knit. Time to move on to the next project in my queue...

PS -- Sadly, I've decided it's time for me to leave Ravelry. I debated leaving last year during the whole political fiasco, but eventually decided to stay and just purchase the patterns I wanted from other websites whenever possible. But recently they posted Gay Pride artwork to their homepage that included sexually explicit (albeit cartoon) images. While I have never liked Ravelry's rather aggressive pro-homosexual and  liberal political stance (I don't see what on earth it has to do with knitting -- I think we can be kind to one another without pushing agendas), I absolutely draw the line at explicit material. It took a while, but I went through and tried to find all of the patterns I'd saved on other websites and have started using Pinterest to organize my favorite knitting patterns/designs. I still need to go through my saved projects and save any relevant info before I remove my account. I guess I'll be starting a knitting journal in earnest now! I'm so sad to lose Ravelry, which was hugely instrumental in my learning to knit in the first place and really has an excellent database -- but it's time.