Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Essential knitting

A nice thing about having more or less memorized my favourite sock pattern is that I never have to be without easy basic knitting.  I can cast on a new sock or turn a heel just about anywhere and instead of panicking as I run out of travel knitting, as I did as late as last fall, I can just throw the right yarn and needles into a bag and go.

The only decision making is when I use a new-to-me yarn and/or slightly nonstandard weights of sock yarn: how far can I go on the leg and still have enough for the toe?  how far should I go on the foot before starting the toe?  And sometimes those do slow me up, as with a gorgeous sock I've been stalled on for lack of time to measure and work out the math

Maybe that would be a good accomplishment to work toward today?

The two portable socks I've got going now: they're easy.  One is the second of my Cucumber Sandwich socks with La Douce from Biscotte et Cie:


The first fits perfectly after some adjustments to my standard approach owing to the cashmere-blend yarn having a little more heft and give than my usual Vesper Sock, so all I need to do is follow the row count I finally figured out to be right for that one.

(This is where marking all the major counting points with safety pins as you go is so helpful: as I knit every sock, I mark where I start to turn the heel, where I finish the gusset, and where I start the toe.  Haven't had a mismatched pair since I figured out that simple memory aid.)

The other sock in progress is a new colour of the same Romney/Mohair blend I bought from Sylvia at Stoddart's Knitter's Frolic booth:


I'm calling this pair-to-be the Red Hot Blues. 

As it happens, when I bought this skein of yarn I also fell hard for a skein beside it, not realizing until I wound the skeins into cakes that its colours were nearly - but not quite - identical.  I put the cakes into a Ziploc bag for moth protection and slipped another colourway in between so I wouldn't mix them up...

... and then knit the Other Colourway In Between.  So, when I went to pack the Red Hot Blues into a travel bag I was in quite a pickle and I came pretty close to having only semi-twin socks.

Of course logically I would have had two perfect pairs once I'd finished all four socks because I follow the same

oh MAN

When I am done all four socks the same thing is gonna happen in the sock drawer!

I'll have to do something different with pair number two.  Maybe a picot cast on, which I can look up and learn using my copy of Cast On, Bind Off?

Or... maybe I should do something really different with pair number two and make them mittens, instead?

Okay, maybe there are a few more decisions to slow me up than I thought.  Still.  Nice problem to have, right?

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