FO: Mystik Spiral Socks

GEAUX TIGERS!Now that I have that out of the way...Just finished the Mystik Spiral Socks, my third pair of socks (and my third pair for ME!) for the year. I first heard about these on the Knitmore Girls Podcast. (For a review of this podcast and the many ways it's enabled me, click here.) Using short rows, this pattern makes some of the stripes in self-striping yarn go delightfully wonky. Even better, my purple-and-gold Gynx Glitz Sock yarn (colorway: Oh My Glob!) ended up looking like tiger stripes. :)I modified this pattern to be 64 stitches for a better fit, which meant fiddling with the numbers throughout the entire pattern. The pattern only comes in one size, but a comment on the Ravelry page for this pattern says it's being rewritten to cover more sizes, so if you don't feel confident enough to modify it for your size, it might be worth waiting. Another comment complains about uncorrected errata in the pattern, but I didn't find any, so I believe it's been fixed.The only issue I found was that no matter how tight I pulled, I got a fairly sizable hole at the corner of the heel. However, this was easily fixed with a tapestry needles once the socks were done.This pattern includes Megan Williams' OMG heel but says it was adapted by the pattern author. I don't know how much it was adapted, since I've never done the OMG heel before - but it was fun!

KALs

One of my goals for 2015 was to participate in Knit-a-longs, or KALs. Many of the KALs around the start of the year focus on knitting from stash - a sort of a yarn binge diet. The rules differ in different KALs about what constitutes "stash," but it's hard to knit from stash when your stash is on a different continent. What I do have with me is a lot of is sock yarn. I've previously said that setting a quantitative goal like the popular "knit 12 socks in a year" is crazypants... but it's February 11, and I've got my third pair off the needles already, and access to pretty much only sock yarn.Another goal was to try some different sock constructions. The Mystik Spiral Socks are definitely a weird construction. They are also toe-up, which I've done before, but which is not my standard. Finally, they use the OMG heel, which I've heard about ad nauseum from the podcasters I listen to.In the end, I tagged these with hashtags for the following KALs:

• #operationsockdrawer, a KAL run by the Knitmore Girls
• #12socksin2015, a KAL run by Ravelry user SoxTherapist, who created the FishLipsKiss heel, another sock construction on my list to try
• #mskstashdownkal, a KAL run by the My Sister's Knitter blog for yarn purchased before January 1 and cast on after January 1
• #treatyoself15, a KAL run by the In a Sknit podcast in which you knit something for yourself after crazy holiday gift knitting
• #2015SZStripes, a KAL run by the Stockinette Zombies video podcast for self-striping socks