and she knits, too!

One of the main reasons I wanted to start posting to a blog was to connect with all of the wonderful knit-bloggers out there. I've spent years reading other knitting blogs, and for the most part I find the discussion of yarn, patterns, spinning, dying, FOs and tips to be exciting and invaluable. I've learned a ton by reading about the misfortune and mistakes of others, and I have used and adapted many patterns posted to other blogs. I thought it would be fitting to make my first knitting related post about something that I came up with on my own: the biking sock!

What is it? It's sort of an adapted sock with a huge hole in the bottom. Dave requested something like this last year, while he was freezing his toes off during his bike commute. According to some sources, Minnesota has the highest number of bike commuters per capita in the United States. I'm proud to say that my wonderful husband is one of them. He has nice biking shoes that he inherited from a friend years ago. The foot portion is made up mostly of mesh, letting his feet breathe during the hot months. They're not exactly designed for November and December biking in this climate.

However! We came up with a solution. He wanted something like a bootie that just went around his foot, but I went with an all out sock, both because it would take me less time to think about the pattern, and because it would go up high enough to reach the bottom of his long underwear, keeping the icy air out all winter long.

The large hole in the bottom allows him to clip into his pedals without tearing up the sock. I struggled a little with the placing of the opening, and had to spend a few days trying his shoes on with the socks to figure it out. He tried them out this morning and said they worked great.

I used crap-tastic black acrylic yarn that was hidden in my stash. I inherited a ton of acrylic yarn in the past, and I hold onto it for projects like this. The acrylic may not be nice to work with, but it is durable and washable, two things that are important when Dave will regularly be splashing through wintry puddles with his socks on the outside. He wanted the toes to be brightly colored for safety. I chose white, again because it was in my stash, but also because it gave the socks a really silly look. I'm sure the fancy-bike commuters will think he's a little strange, but he'll be laughing all the way to work because he feet will be warm!

One added bonus of the toe design is that if his feet get too hot, he can flip the toes up and cool off without having to stop and take them off. I also added a small slit at the top of the shoe so he can re-tie his shoes without having to
pull them off completely. I'll have to wait to see how they look come spring, but if they hold up nearly as well as his flip top mittens, I think the project was a great success.