Think of these as my Orange Creamsicle socks. Orange on the outside with my icy ghostly pale feet on the inside. They are my version of Virginia Rose-Jeanes Vanilla Latte Socks. The Vanilla Latte pattern is wonderful, as is. I just made a few modifications.

If you haven’t already figured it out from my prattling on about knitting with discontinued yarns and unavailable patterns, I am no spring chicken. Some of my socks are almost assuredly older than you. I mostly enjoy wearing my handknit socks, not to my hot yoga classes, not to my children’s pre-COVID playdates, but in bed. A hot water bottle might do as well, I suppose. In fact, he-who-will-not-be-named bought me one for Christmas. No joke. He was sure I would like it. But I like to wear my socks in bed. This pair is totally warm and cozy.

The Vanilla Latte pattern is really not vanilla at all. It includes some items of knitter’s choice by supplying 3 toe shapes and 3 heel stitches. I chose the Eye of Partridge heel cuff and the round wedge toe. I modified the pattern to make a long cuff. And I worked a knit 3 purl 1 rib through the whole cuff and the top of the foot, not just for the initial 1 and 1/2 inches that the pattern calls for. I’d like to say that I planned out not shifting to the knit 6, purl 2 pattern the designer sets out for the rest of the cuff and the top of the foot. I just forgot to shift to it at the appropriate point. By the time I was a few inches beyond the shift, I was liking the look of knit 3 purl 1 and decided to simply continue on that path. Instead of fingering weight, I used my favorite sportweight sock yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Mediumweight.

My cold feet are enjoying these socks. A lot. If you’d like to see Vanilla Latte as the designer intended, check here.

These next foot warmers need to be modeled on feet first. Because when you first see them off-foot it doesn’t make you want to knit them.

These are Mone Drager’s Bea’s Slippers. I’ve been wanting to knit them for a number of years. I’d seen some project pages that made them look odd in an interesting way. I found the construction intriguing. And my busy beautiful skein of worsted weight Fynn, from The Yarns of Rhichard Devrieze, was looking for a home.

These were a total hoot to knit! After finishing one I was skeptical that feet would find them comfy. I was wrong.

These slippers start at the toe with “your favorite toe-up cast-on.” Personally, I don’t have a favorite. Judy’s Magic Cast-on is decidedly unmagical for me. I don’t exactly know what a “Figure 8” is except on ice. With help from Brown-Eyed Bab’s excellent photo tutorial I can manage a Turkish cast-on, so that’s what I used.

Knitting these socks produces some interesting stresses on the fabric as you knit. I’ll just leave it at that. Maybe that was a function of the fact that apparently I eschew all magic when it comes to knitting, including Magic Loop technique. Please ignore (I do) that laddering on the cuffs. I typically don’t get ladders in my 4-needle doublepoint work. I’m blaming those interesting stresses, even though by cuff time they’d faded. A bath in Eucalan helped some.

Here’s to warm feet and a happier New Year!