Today's FO is a long time coming: I gave the yarn to Tyler for Christmas 2015 with an explanation of the project - to knit him a pair of socks which commemorated the 2015 Kansas City Royals season; each of the 4 colors would symbolize a win or a loss either at home or on the road. It was an ambitious project, needless to say.
I didn't cast on until March 28, 2016, and I finished them just in the nick of time before we headed to Kansas City last month - the official "done" date is January 26, 2017. Honestly, they would probably still be on the needles if I hadn't had a fire lit underneath me to finish them so that Tyler could wear them to Fan Fest!
Why did this take so long? The obvious answer is that wrangling four balls of yarn is a total PITA - and since I decided to knit them two-at-a-time, that meant I was actually dealing with eight balls of yarn on any given day...so, you kind of had to be "in the mood" to work on such a project, and often I wasn't. Also, that meant that they were strictly an at-home project. My final excuse is that this project (and socks in general, unfortunately) hurt my hands.
For all of those reasons, the finish line kept moving further away from me: before the season ended, by Christmas 2016, and finally, the one that worked - Royals Fan Fest.
There were a lot of lessons learned along the way. As previously noted, managing four colors while knitting two at a time socks was every bit as fussy as I imagined, and then some. Untangling eight balls of yarn quickly became a hassle, even with cutting colors frequently, all the while knowing that I was creating a nightmare of ends to weave in later.
Honestly, that part wasn't so bad because I packed the socks, a darning needle and TSA-friendly scissors for my flight to TNNA in San Jose and wove in ALL of the ends for one sock on the flight there (it took less than half the flight) and then did the other sock on the way back.
All that remained were the afterthought heels, which I knitted during the two days I was home before going to KC. There was no time to properly wash and block, but he DID get to wear them to Fan Fest! This was our first one, and I would definitely go again, especially know that I know what to expect.
The memorial for Yordano Ventura was really lovely, and honestly that sort of helped us all make sense of the tragic and surprising recent events....although I was a little creeped out by the person who dressed up as Ventura and found their way into my photo.
But there was beer and all of baseball we could handle. Plus, several of my heroes walked within mere feet of me. That was pretty cool.
Also, I got to meet the manager, Ned Yost, and have him sign a baseball for me.
Once we got back to Chicago, I was able to finally wash & block the socks properly - here they are drying on some sock blockers!
I used yarn from Knit Picks and made up my own pattern as I went, but I can tell you that yellow represents away wins, grey represents away losses, blue is home wins and white are home losses. I'm not certain these are 100% accurate, but I think they're pretty darn close. It was a challenge to plan for so many rows in the context of a sock!
Tyler's pretty happy with them, so it was all worth it in the end - but you can bet that I won't attempt a project on this scale again any time soon...which is great because I honestly couldn't replicate this again if I tried, I did a terrible job of keeping track of things!
Thanks for stopping by, have a crafty weekend!
I didn't cast on until March 28, 2016, and I finished them just in the nick of time before we headed to Kansas City last month - the official "done" date is January 26, 2017. Honestly, they would probably still be on the needles if I hadn't had a fire lit underneath me to finish them so that Tyler could wear them to Fan Fest!
 |
| Unblocked socks are ready for Fan Fest! |
For all of those reasons, the finish line kept moving further away from me: before the season ended, by Christmas 2016, and finally, the one that worked - Royals Fan Fest.
There were a lot of lessons learned along the way. As previously noted, managing four colors while knitting two at a time socks was every bit as fussy as I imagined, and then some. Untangling eight balls of yarn quickly became a hassle, even with cutting colors frequently, all the while knowing that I was creating a nightmare of ends to weave in later.
Honestly, that part wasn't so bad because I packed the socks, a darning needle and TSA-friendly scissors for my flight to TNNA in San Jose and wove in ALL of the ends for one sock on the flight there (it took less than half the flight) and then did the other sock on the way back.
All that remained were the afterthought heels, which I knitted during the two days I was home before going to KC. There was no time to properly wash and block, but he DID get to wear them to Fan Fest! This was our first one, and I would definitely go again, especially know that I know what to expect.
The memorial for Yordano Ventura was really lovely, and honestly that sort of helped us all make sense of the tragic and surprising recent events....although I was a little creeped out by the person who dressed up as Ventura and found their way into my photo.
But there was beer and all of baseball we could handle. Plus, several of my heroes walked within mere feet of me. That was pretty cool.
Once we got back to Chicago, I was able to finally wash & block the socks properly - here they are drying on some sock blockers!
Tyler's pretty happy with them, so it was all worth it in the end - but you can bet that I won't attempt a project on this scale again any time soon...which is great because I honestly couldn't replicate this again if I tried, I did a terrible job of keeping track of things!
Thanks for stopping by, have a crafty weekend!
Very clever! These are awesome!
ReplyDeleteWhat a brilliant and thoughtful knit!! Love these.
ReplyDelete