These have taken far too long, but at last my truly, madly, deeply neon socks are done. The extended knitting period was caused by the fact that I wasn't that keen on the very wide repeats and lack of stripe definition as shown on the photo on the ball-band, and by the fact that I had to buy a second 100g ball to finish the pair when it seems there is virtually none of this yarn in the country.

I may not have liked the programmed repeats but I do, however, love the different neon colours. So I decided to knit thinner stripes - mostly based on four rows - and to create greater contrast and alter the colour sequence by pulling out different sections from within and from the end. The more I knitted, the more I thought of the neon highlighter pens that seem to accumulate here on windowsills and in pencil cases. I always like the pink-yellow-orange-lime pens best, and the varying thicknesses of the stripes reminded me of the way you can make narrow or wide lines with the chubby felt-tips.

Even before I'd finished the first sock I could see I was going to be short of yarn for the second, depsite the fact that these are my usual size socks and nothing extra-large. So I scoured UK websites for another ball and eventuall  tracked one down, but I could believe how different it was to the first. Admittedly it's a different dye lot but while it's bright it's also totally un-neon and even contains shades that didn't occur in the first ball. It took quite some planning to disguise the introduction of the new yarn but in end it worked out OK because I'd kept back some of the blisteringly hot pink (as opposed to the dainty pink in the new ball) which worked well with the paler new yarn. There are far too many ends to sew in for my liking because of the colour changes but, as it's still summer, the socks aren't needed just yet and can sit around on a windowsill or in a pencil case,  looking very much at home surrounded by bright neon highlighter pens.

The sock pattern is in The Gentle Art of Knitting and the yarn is Regia Fluormania 'Rainbow' (4-ply).

[I'm now wondering if there are two version of this yarn. The less neon version seems to be available in the US while the the very neon version is the one in the UK (NB the one on eBay is exactly the same colour as the yarn I used but is 6-ply), even though my second ball came from a UK seller.]