From This...

to this.--->

Oh! My socks have de-evolved. hehehe.

These are, or were, socks I made out of Lana Grossa Cotton Fun sock yarn.

I bought it at the one Stitches East show I went to, the last time it was in Atlantic City, with my mom and Aunt K.

I think I've mentioned in passing that I've had it in for these socks for quite a while now. (Traveling Ann, destroyer of knitwear!)

I don't know what went wrong with them. Well, actually, yes I do—I made them a smidge to big and then then stretched.

I guess I made them too early in my sock knitting career, before I had established how I like my socks to fit, and that I prefer one inch of negative ease.

As far as I can tell, since I don't seem to have written anything down, these are 56 sts. And it looks like I got 7 sts to the inch. So I made them the size of my foot, that is without any negative ease at all.

Then, being almost half cotton, they stretched out and didn't really spring back. (Hey, Ravelry says this yarn is discontinued!)

I can handle it on the leg, but the bagginess on the foot was annoying me. To the point where I wasn't wearing them. So I thought, might as well frog them and start over, since they are wasted/ignored as is.

Rip, Yank, Tug
I pulled them apart yesterday, while I was reviewing my interview notes at work preparing to write an article.

It was a little hard to open the toe up, but then I had smooth sailing until the heel. There seemed to be some minor felting on the heel, or at least fuzz build up, that required so yanking to get through. The structural integrity of the yarn seems fine.

At that point I just rolled them into balls. When I got home, I wrapped them around the box from the perfume sampler I got for my birthday, tied them with kite string, then dunked them in the bathroom sink.

Of course, you have to tie it so it doesn't get tangled up when you are dunking it. After rolling them in a towel and stomping on them a bit, I hung them up to dry. All of this abuse should get most of the kinks out so the yarn is easier to re-knit.

They seemed well on their way to being dry when I checked them this morning.

Why Reinvent the Sock?
I think I'll follow the same pattern/stitch count I did for the Cotton Rib Socks out of Sockina Cotton I just finished at the beginning of June.

This is the same pattern I'm using for the socks out of Opal Cotton yarn I cast on last night. This yarn is softer than I was expecting. I have some Opal Wool socks that make me itch.

The Opal Cotton is also an interesting contrast to the Sockina Cotton. Where that yarn was cotton/acrylic/nylon, which gave it a slick, almost plastic or metallic feeling, the Opal Cotton is cotton/acrylic/wool, which gives it a softer, more natural hand. Which isn't to say the Sockina is unpleasant, it's just different.