Flip-flop socks

Last year, while rummaging through the bargain bin that is The Book Warehouse, I stumbled across a book called "Learn to Knit Socks" and snapped it up. It's where I got the pattern for the socks I made for my granddad last year. Anyway, one of the weirder patterns in that book was one for flip-flop socks.

Yeah, flip-flop socks. Socks with a separate toe that you can wear with flip-flops. As one of my closest friends is moving further north, to Belfast, and has a habit of wearing flip-flops in December, I just had to have a go at making them. I also just fancied a challenge, and had some yarn to use up. It was salvaged from a cream jumper that was horrendously unflattering.

The cast-on was a weird technique called Turkish cast on which I only got right after watching this video repeatedly. But by far the hardest bit for me was attaching the big toe to the main section after knitting them separately. For both socks, I somehow knitted them on upside down.

Uh-oh. And even when I reattached the toe on the second sock, I purled or knitted wrong and ended up with a weird bumpy bit. But I didn't care and kept going.

The great thing about toe-up socks is that you can try them on as you go along. And the great thing about flip-flop socks is that you can put them on your hands and woop like Dr Zoidberg.

And here they are finally, ready to be sent off. I don't have any action shots of them with flip-flops because at the time of making my pair were under a snake's tank in Aberystwyth (they still are, but now I have another pair).

I wrapped them in sheets of newspaper supplement with naked feminists on, added a note instructing that my friend dye them, and popped them in the post. And that was the last I saw of them, although I did get a text along the lines of "OHMYGOD I love them!", which is the exact response I was hoping for.

And that's that. Flip-flop socks.