I made up my own sock pattern

For my birthday last year my sister encouraged my yarn hoarding habit by giving me a gift certificate to Knit NY. I waited as long as I could in a vain attempt to make a dent in the yarn that I already had. Soon after we moved, I gave a wicker basket back to my parents and as we were emptying it out Todd discovered just how much yarn I'd managed accumulate. Needless to say he was not as excited about my gift as I was, but when a high school friend and fellow knitting enthusiast came to visit I decided to give in and spent it.
One of the greatest things about yarn and knitting stores is that there are tons of knitted samples so you can see how the yarns knit up and how the patterns turn out. This is a little different compulsion that causes knitters to download or print way more patterns than they'll ever be able to knit. I succumbed to the allure of a beautiful multicolored afghan that I'd seen in on Knitty.com and picked out several balls of Noro Kureyon. Then as we commandeered Todd's computer to look up yet more knitting related stuff and I suggested that he pick out some yarn so that I could make him some socks.

The yarn, a rich single ply red yarn was complimented by a multi-ply tan yarn suggested by the woman working at the store a complimentary for stronger toes and heels. To take the best advantage of the red I knitted the socks from the toe up and then knitted the socks up until I ran out of the red. The trickiest part was the cuffs because I had to strike the right balance between being tight enough to stay up and being loose enough to be comfortable - oh and they still needed to look good, even when not worn. This is how they turned out: