Whatever I may generally say about blue things (bleh, although I'm trying to be more open-minded) I have to admit that this sock is springy. Quite aggressively Easter-eggy in its cheerfulness.

Hey knittergirl, just leave me out here to catch some rays, OK?

It is always good to have a simple sock on the side. There comes a point in any knitting evening when one is just too tuckered out to knit lace with furry, sticky, tiny yarn. Thus far I've made relatively few mistakes on the Birch that I've had to stop and correct. But making a mistake on Birch is the signal to put her down and step away from the lace. Nothing like an easy sock to pick up instead at times like this.

This newest sock (Opal Southwest Color #3708) has a picot edge. I see no-one out there is looking shocked, since almost all the socks I knit for myself have this little feature. My lovely sister Silvia introduced me to the picot edged sock a few years ago, and not being a huge fan of ribbing in socks I haven't looked back.

I've gone on and on about picot edged socks before, but since I'm getting questions about it again, here's the recipe. I cast on 60 stitches using long-tail cast on. You could try other cast-ons, but I can't think of a good reason to use anything for this other than long-tail. Also, you might want to make picot-edged socks fit your calf area pretty darn snugly. Picots, though pretty, won't do a damn thing to hold the sock up on your leg.

Knit circularly for 7 rows. On the next row, YO K2tog all around. Then knit 7 more rows. Now, fold up the edging along the YO row, and knit each live stitch together with one from the cast on row.

The key to avoiding biasing or puckering of the picot edging is to constantly check to see that the cast on stitch you are choosing to knit with any given live stitch lines up. Follow the live stitch all the way down to the cast on row, and you can quickly see if you are getting ahead/falling too far behind in your knitting together. Check every few stitches so that if there is a problem, you can correct it without having to rip out.

The knit together row is time consuming, but go slowly and carefully and your picot edge will not bias or pucker. Also, be sure to knit into both threads of the cast on edge. If you only knit into one of the threads of the cast on row instead of catching both per stitch, this could cause the picot edge to flare out unattractively. Here is a shot of the wrong side of the picot edging.

Lastly, you don't HAVE to finish your picot edging by knitting the live stitch with the cast on row. I mean, if you just *love* to sew you could attach the cast on row to the sock using the tail of the yarn and a wool needle. I would honestly try not to pass judgment on you for this, but secretly I might think "wussy".