Socking News!

Since I have knitted my first pair of socks one and a half years ago I never have been without a sock-project in my knitting bag. There is something utterly soothing and nice when knitting a small project like this.

It is portable: which means that I can throw it in a smallish (for my standards at least) handbag and take it out quickly at any time without having to cope with too much bulk (at a train station for example) and put it away equally quick (when said train is rolling in). 
It's perfect for traveling and can be very easy and repetitive if a simple pattern is chosen, so that I don't even bother taking a pattern with me most of the time.

There is always a sock WIP in my bag and when it's finished I immediately cast on another sock, to have it ready when needed.

When working on my socks I like the simple aluminium DPNs the most, they bend and are flexible (which is especially handy for the toe-up version I prefer, when starting with Judy's magic cast-on) and in my opinion slide much quicker and make for smoother, rhythmical knitting.

I have quite a lot of these in 2mm and 2,5mm sizes and since they are fairly cheap I am less sad when I frequently loose some here or there....

When traveling by plane I tend to use bamboo DPNs (most companies don't allow metal needles on board), but I quickly remove them when I get off, since I find it annoying to knit with them. At least in the 2mm size they tend to be too flexible, don't let the yarn slide off as smoothly and my knitting tends to look much more irregular! 
So I quickly get quite irritated by them...

I have tried the carbon DPNs in the same size and found them great - but after some use the metal tips loosened up a little (at least it got like that on my pair) and the yarn snags at the connection of the tip to the carbon body, which is no fun at all. So I got back to my old, bended, cheap aluminium version and I am happily knitting my socks again.

My preferred construction is the toe-up version I am describing in this free recipe here. I find the fit of the gusseted heel perfect for my feet: so I play around with the texture or colouring of each project but keep the main construction the same. In my last 2 pairs I have purled the gusset stitches which not only looks nice but also has the added bonus of making stitch markers for the gusset stitches redundant, since one can see immediately how many of them have been worked already!

To keep things even simpler I don't keep notes at all, but put safety pins to mark rows or crucial points I need to remember for the second sock. 

Like this I can see immediately when exactly I started the gusset increases by counting the rows on my first sock until said safety pin, or how many rows I added after the toe increase and things like that.

I also bring the cast-on tail to the RS after knitting some rounds, so that the yarn end that hangs on one side tells me where my rounds start - again without having to use any marker!
(It seems that the elimination of stitch markers makes me incredibly happy!)

The last one and a half year I am exclusively wearing home-knitted socks and I really hate store bought ones with a vengeance! It is such a difference to wear a sock that just fits you perfectly (without having it slide into the shoe when walking and producing a huge wedge underneath one's foot) and they are so much warmer and dryer and just pure bliss and perfection when worn!!!!

So, after all this sock-talk I wan't to know: 
What do you think of knitted socks? 
And do you have a preferred method or pattern?

Hm? By looking at my latest 4 pairs I seem to notice a preference for grey toes (and heels)!?!

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