Oval Socks, or How I Swatched Until I Found a Sock Pattern I Wanted

 So once upon a time I found a stash of HiKoo DK (skacel) in the Herrschners' sale bin.  It was a nice, bouncy, sturdy merino/nylon yarn perfect for thicker socks.  And I enjoy using this yarn for socks!  I'm sad that it's no longer easily available to me.  It's a little splitty, but the stitch definition is excellent and they wear like a boss.  So yes, I would reccomend this yarn for experienced knitters who can navigate around some splitting issues.

I originally had five skeins of blue and made a pair of socks last year for Christmas gifting.  I also had three skeins of pink and three skeins of coffee.  And my rules for this yarn were to use it with patterns that highlighted the nice stitch definition.  Also, my family hates lace socks "because they are cold" so that make me focus on knit through the back loop and cable designs.  Or a combo of knit through the back loop with cables.

Originally I was going to use these two skeins for the pattern "Socke 1" which is a 8 stitch cable man's sock.  I was going to size it down to a woman's sock based on my gauge swatch.  And then I did the gause swatch and... well...

I knit a LOT looser than the designer.  So I'm on a good needle size for the yarn and coming up with a sock that would fit an elephant.  Noooope!  New sock pattern!

I went with Twisted Ovals, and then immediately changed the slip stitch + knit cable pattern into a no slip stitch K1TBL cable pattern.  Because that's what I wanted to knit.

Here's the first one, knit toe up, short row heel.  It uses the entire skein, just knit the ribbing until you run out of yarn.  I like how my modifications turned out!