Rainbow knee socks, third times the charm?

why yes, I am enjoying my ipod!

Yup, I have started these suckers three times already.  I am so hoping that this time they come out the right size.  In case you were wondering, these are for Lil' Miss, not for me, I'm not really a 'rainbow' type person.  When the new colors of felici were released last month I knew she would love the color so bought 2 skeins to make her some knee high socks (cause doesn't even fashionable Kindergartener need some snazzy knee hi's?).  It is a really nice yarn base to work with, washable merino wool that is nice and smooshy, and it can being handle ripped out three times and re-knit!

The pattern I finally settled on was Riblet (Ravelry link) socks by Katt Walker designed to fit a wide range of young'uns.  All would have been great if I hadn't decided to do them up to the knee (they aren't designed as knee socks), it is a really well thought design of ribbing all the way down the sock to ensure a comfortable fit on many different foot sizes.  However I decided to just cast on and go for it after some reassurance from a fellow Raveler without doing any kind of gauge swatch to check my gauge against Lil' Misses calf circumference (I need to re-read my own goals list on the left bar don't I!).  So after about 2 weeks of knitting I tried them on her again and this time she said they "didn't feel so good."  Sigh, you know what that means!  I frogged them and started over. 

Funny aside here, a non-knitter friend was sitting in the room with me and some knitters when I began ripping them out.  The poor thing was literally squirming in her chair watching me do it, I think she was just about ready to leave rather than continue to watch in growing horrified fascination.  Everyone else understood my problem, yes I could just finish them, but they wouldn't fit and would never be worn so it was better to rip out 2 weeks of work rather than continue on with a doomed project. 

I cast on for the second time with 70 stitches instead of 55 and of course after being too small this time they were turning out too big, so frog again.  For my third attempt I cast on with 60 stitches and am keeping my fingers crossed that it will work out this time.  My gauge seems to have relaxed some too, for some reason when I started these I think I was attempting to choke the life out of the poor yarn.  Now that I have gotten used to working with it I seem to be having an easier time of it.  Hopefully I'll get them done before she grows out of them, I just have to keep plugging away now that they seem to be the right circumference for her leg.