Neptune High, sock 1

After finishing up the Rare Parrot socks for the second time, I finally settled on Neptune High as my next pattern.  This is my second pair of Fair Isle socks, and I'm using Comfy Fingering Weight yarn.  Actually I tried another pair of Fair Isle socks with this yarn and was not happy with the result.  It's really not the best yarn for stranded knitting.  I liked using Palette better.  But anyway, I tried Comfy again and it worked out pretty well. The stitch definition is not amazing (though it looks much more so in these pictures than in reality!), but it's not bad.  I probably wouldn't use Comfy for stranded knitting again, but no major complaints. It is indeed comfy (and washable, which is a nice change for my socks).

I love the stripes on the bottom of the foot. 

I can't get a good close-up of the argyle pattern.

 

In the course of knitting this first sock, I decided to learn the Philospher's Wool two-handed Fair Isle to hopefully save myself some trouble.  I was sick of the yarn tangling, and it is kind of a pain twisting the strands in the same hand.  So I learned this new method, and I love it.  It is so much quicker, nothing gets tangled, everything gets wrapped as you go so there are no floats, AND I managed to learn to knit with the yarn in my left hand (I'm still a right-hand knitter all the way, but for stranded knitting, I like that I can now use both).  Here's a picture of the inside.  The right side is the way I was knitting originally, and the left is the woven Philospher's Wool style.  Much neater by far.  The second sock will be knit entirely two-handed.

 

I did have a bit of issue in that I was holding the main color in the left hand instead of the right, mainly for ease with the pattern itself - the wrapping was easier to do on right-handed stitches and there were more of the contrast color that needed wrapping, so I held that right-handed for a while.  Then I realized that it's better to hold the MC in the right hand because the CC will pop out better due to...I don't remember what.  It is most noticeable on the sole of the foot.  You can kind of see in that picture above that the first inch or so from the heel was knit with the colors in the wrong hands.  The light purple just kind of fades into the dark instead of popping out, and then after that it is much more defined.  

Normally I do my second sock in opposite colors (in this case the light purple would be the MC instead of CC), but I think I'm going to be consistent with this pair.  I like the colors like this, and an actual matching pair of socks might be nice for a change, haha.  Plus I think the pattern itself just looks better with the dark color in the background.  If it were two completely different colors, purple and blue for example, it wouldn't matter as much, but with the light and dark purple, I think this is better.  

I kind of killed my hands on this sock though, so I should probably take it easy for sock 2.  (I always think that.)