Mock Cable Socks

I have been thinking about knitting something with mock cables since I happened upon them in Lily Chin's "Power Cables" book.I decided to design a sock using the mock cable and stagger them on the leg and instep.
I'm using Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine sock yarn. I haven't had a lot of luck washing alpaca socks so will always wash these by hand.

Lily Chin's pattern is written for flat knitting so I modified it for knitting in the round. Basically, in a K3, P1 pattern, instead of doing a cable by reversing the order of the stitches, the mock cable is done by slipping the first st knitwise with the yarn in back, knitting the next two and then passing the slipped st over the two knitted ones. Yes, there is one less st per cable, however in the next row you simply knit a stitch between the two stitches embraced by the psso by knitting into the back of the slipped loop. Confused?? Check out the cable pattern in my Notes here.

This project will also be one (fairly mindless) that I can take with me on my UK knitting tour. Two more sleeps! I'm thinking I'll take the Chrysanthemum mitten project, too.