St. Patrick's Day Socks or Are They???

I finished my St. Patrick's Day socks so I'm all ready for Friday! After I blocked them I noticed something - do you see the faces in the eyelet pattern? They look like little alien faces. I made Little Green Men socks! Technically the Cloverleaf Eyelet pattern is supposed to have one hole at the top and two at the bottom, but since I worked the socks top down, the design got flipped!

All the details: 64 stitches around, Cloverleaf Eyelet Rib pattern from Barbara G. Walker's first book (add 2 more purl stitches to make it an 8 stitch repeat). Knit on size 1's US (2.25mm) with Knit Picks Color Your Own Fingering Weight, dyed with green Easter Egg dye tablets. I'm not going to write up this pattern since the book is widely available (check your library if you don't have it) and there are bunches of 64 stitch sock patterns out there.

Tonya had asked in the comments why I didn't do toe up socks. I used to do toe up socks. If you go into my archives and read you'll realize that I didn't start top down socks until the end of last year. My usual sock used to be a toe up, short rowed heel type. I've pretty much switched because I have a strange foot. My foot is on the narrow side, but I have a high instep. Socks fit better if they have a gusset. I know I complain about gussets (Vortex of Socky Time and Energy that they are), but I do get a better fitting sock with them. I know you can knit a toe up sock with a heel flap and gusset, Sensational Knitted Socks has them, but I don't like the way those look. I've made peace with the Kitchener Stitch (SKS also has the best directions + pictures of Kitchener I've ever seen and I'm actually able to do the stitch now), so top down doesn't really intimidate me any more. As to why gussets take so much time? I think its because the needles with the heel and gusset stitches on them are at a right angle to the instep stitches. This makes the needles a little harder to juggle and makes sock knitting feel like wrestling an octopus, until you get some of those stitches decreased out and the angle starts to even out. I don't think it has much to do with the extra stitches because let's face it, the extra stitches are usually knit stitches and those go fast anyway. Anyway, that's what I think, for today at least.