FO (Knitting): Toe-Up Christmas Tree Socks

When a challenge to knit a cuff-down pattern (HiyaHiya Christmas Tree Socks) came up in the HiyaHiya Patterns-KAL group I just couldn't resist. The real challenge in this was reversing the lace pattern. My first try looked like this:

I wasn't impressed. The holes were all in the right places, but the crispness of the "branches" had been lost completely. So I tried to do it differently on the second sock, and came up with this:

Now that's more like it! The branches are nicely defined - you can actually see the "trees"! I ribbed the first sock back to the end of the toe section and finished both socks with my new version of the reversed Christmas Tree pattern. I followed the heel instructions from Liat Gat's Basic Toe-Up Socks pattern, and the socks came out fitting really well.

I thoroughly enjoyed this challenge, and learned a lot from it. I think my reversed pattern looks really nice, even if it is not perfect (one of the other knitters came up with a slightly better solution using different double decreases). I think the best thing I got out of this project (apart from a beautiful pair of socks) is even more confidence to alter patterns... or even make my own sock designs...