A Red Sock Day

Yesterday, actually.  I thought I'd finish these last week, but didn't until Sunday afternoon, when I purse-stringed the toes, sewed in loose ends, etc.


These socks were cast on early Sunday morning at KeyCon in Winnipeg, but had only some of the cuff worked when I got home--the other red pair, started before the trip, was finished on the train an hour or so before it reached the station.
Why, you may wonder (or not <G>) does the new pair have a pale stripe?
Here's why:

This is the first of the two pairs...they're less than a month apart in age, with these having been worn only a few times--not enough to "show" when I'm washing them.  Despite the apparent difference in color (it's a difference in lighting) they were made with the same yarn, same dye lot.  And I did not want to confuse the pairs.  So the second has a stripe.  Since I have an overage of red yarn (all the same manufacturer, same color number, and more of them the same dye lot)  I will be knitting quite a few red socks, and decided to mark the pairs with a toe stripe--each pair will have a different color toe stripe and if I run out of colors I'll start making two-row stripes, not one-row stripes for the second round.  The older red socks show enough wear that I can tell them from the new ones.

And now I'm onto the second sock of the yellow-striped shorty pair, almost to the heel turn.  The first sock is almost to the toe decreases, but I'm going to catch up with sock #2 so I can finish them at the same time.