K'done: plain socks

 Well, I made it! I wore the socks for Halloween - not that I have clear proof of that, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Pattern: none, a plain stockinette sock worked over 64 sts

Yarn: SUBCULTURE Yarn SW Merino Nylon Fingering, in Shady Business (I bought mine at a fibre festival in 2018, so my label says JOMA Yarn)

Needles: 2.25 mm / US 1

I also forgot to snag pictures until the sun was kind of low, and the lights were on inside. Oh well.

I picked this yarn for my July socks because July is Stampede month here in Calgary - except in 2020, the Stampede was cancelled due to COVID-19. Truth be told, I haven't been to the Stampede in several years now. For those who aren't familiar, the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede is an annual festival of sorts. It officially starts with a big parade. There are events that highlight the agricultural roots of the Calgary area - a rodeo, chuckwagon races (both of which attract not just participants and audiences from far and wide, but also animal rights activists), and livestock exhibitions. There's an arts and crafts fair - local and not-so-local artisans submit their work for display: photography, painting, sculpture, and textile arts. There's a talent show for local youth. There are some displays meant to highlight the culture of local indigenous populations. There's a midway, with the usual assortment of travelling carnival rides and game booths. And there are a wide variety of food vendors, some typical fair food, like cotton candy, corn dogs, fresh-cut fries, and mini donuts, others more exotic, particularly in more recent years - I think people were talking about a scorpion pizza last year? Plus a giant vendor's hall, where salespeople try to sell you stuff. Lots of stuff. Household gadgetry, decorative knick knackery, more snacks, clothing and apparel, Western style clothing and apparel, and always a booth where you can borrow some old timey costumes and get a sepia-toned portrait done.

This yarn made me think of the Stampede for a few reasons. One was the colourway name - Shady Business. Lots of great charities benefit from the Stampede, and certainly it's good for Calgary's tourism industry, but there's also lots of potential for shenanigans at the Stampede. I'd guess that at least some of those midway games are rigged. A lot of the vendors in the marketplace are selling gimmicky crap. And then there's the decidedly darker side to the Stampede - since the whole city effectively goes into party mode for the ten-ish days of the event, with beer tents and alcohol-fueled parties running nearly constantly, which means people are drunker than usual, and incidents involving drunken, unruly behaviour rise in frequency. The colourway of this yarn struck me as being reminiscent of this - bits of bright colours mixed in with darker shades.

Tech specs: started with an Italian tubular cast on, worked 11 rounds of 1x1 rib, then into straight stockinette. Eye of partridge heel flap worked over half the stitches, placed gussets 12 sts away from top of sock for a bit of an arch shaping effect. Usual-for-me wedge toe, with decreases paced for some extra rounding right at the end.

Also: I've started my August scrappy socks, but have yet to take a picture. Soon. Soon.