world's worst socks

want to see the world's worst socks? baahaaahaaa. I just have to laugh b/c if I don't, I'll cry :-) These are my first pair of socks, finished tonight. They are a knit picks free pattern, knit from the toe up on 2 circs. I bound off too tight and they don't fit over my heel, they are wonky and won't lay flat, and there are ladders where the circs met and holes in the corners of the heel (it was an afterthought heel, where you knit 2 rows of the heel on waste yarn then go back to it once the sock is done.) Funny enough, the mis-matched stripe pattern was actually done on purpose. I pulled from the center of the ball for one sock and the outside of the ball for the other. LOL not sure what I will ever do with these, maybe save them for posterity so that in a few years when I am a sock master I can look back and see how far I've come :-D

here they are:

the good news is that I got a bunch of knit food done for my friends, and I cast on my second pair of socks (you fall off the horse, you have to get right back on!) and have much higher hopes for these. They are knit from the top down instead of toe up, and already the cuff is much more loose since I used a double needle cast on. It is a pattern from the book I got with my christmas money from Grandma, and the pattern called for Cascade 220. I almost never use the yarn suggested in the pattern, I try to stick to the same weight but that's it. I rarely even use the material suggested, substituting cotton for wool etc. I'm fearless that way!anyway, I know a lot of knitters swear by Cascade 220, I myself am not a wool fan and tend to lean more toward cotton or cotton blends, butI've been meaning to look at cascade to see what all the fuss was about. Imagine my surprise when I found 2 balls of it in my stash!! I got it to start a blanket a long time ago, just trying out a pattern, and decided it would take too long then moved on to a different project. I didn't even look at the label LOL, just the yardage and price. :-) It is a dark green so hopefully it will help hide any mistakes I make! This is the first patten in the book, it is on #5 needles instead of the #2s I used for the wonky socks, and being the first pattern in a book that is working on teaching you a specific technique it has a LOT of helpful hints and step-by-step instructions. Hopefully they help, I'mnervous about the heel but I will prevail!! I'm taking them to my knitting group on wednesday so if anyone sees me doing something wrong PLEASE TELL ME! :-D