Behold the socks that created my obsession! These were actually the third pair I knitted but the first ones that made me understand why knitted socks are so great.
The pattern is the classic Hermione's Everyday Socks, and the yarn is a special blend of all kinds of things including silk and bamboo, bought as a souvenir from a shop called Yarnia in Portland during a big US road trip we took in 2015. You can sort of see the different strands in it in this pic here.
These are my lucky socks. I wore them to job interviews, I wore them the day I got accepted into uni, and I wore them for confidence whenever I was doing something scary.
Alas, after years of heavy use, one of them has a hole in the ball of the foot and I expect the other one won't be far behind.
So given that for once I've managed not to overburden myself with Christmas crafting this year, I think my project for the holidays is going to be to learn how to fix these. At least they'll be usable for wearing around the house, and given they're 8 years old that's pretty good going really!
(Please excuse the wildly different colours from one image to the next, this was a long time ago and I did not know how to camera)
That is so clever!!!