living in the woods and making stuff

More socks…I just started another pair of two socks at once on one set of double point needles. One sock is knit with the yarn held in the left hand, and the other sock is purled with the yarn held in the right hand. The pattern is in an Piecework Magazine, and has been recently re-released in their single issue magazine Knitting Traditions, which is awesome! My favorite bit about this particular pattern is that it has been referenced in many old knitting magazines as well as in War and Peace! That was all it took to get me inspired! That and the possibility to do something new and tricky, involving socks.

Maybe too tricky…

I cast on for both socks at the same time, using my right hand and left hand mirroring each other to cast on.

The right sides of the cast on edge were on the outside, and the wrong sides were together, so I had to twist the stitches so that they were opposite, as the socks are knit with the right sides together. I got through the cast on and knit 2 purl 2 ribbed border with several mishaps, and learned to make sure and check my work REGULARLY so as not to accidentally connect the two socks…

The purled sock is a little bigger, and I am worried that my gauge is significantly different from knitting continentally to purling English style. I am going to keep on working on it for a while and see what I can do…

Fast forward a few days..

I ripped out socks numbered one and two, as I am pretty sure that I would have had two distinctly different sized socks if I had continued. The purled sock (on the outside), worked with the yarn in my right hand, was coming out much larger.

I also decided that I would like the socks to be ribbed the whole way down. This means that I would have had to constantly be switching between socks, as well as stitches, which is tricky! It didn’t make sense for me to spend that much time tinkering with this particular project. I ripped out the socks, and switched to one sock at a time.

I finished one very orange sock, measured the amount of yarn that I had left, and re-knit the top and grafted the new part onto the old. There is a bit of a line where I grafted the two parts together, but this way I can use all of the yarn in the ball, and have super long ribbed socks. They come about 2/3 of the way up my calf!

Of course I have one finished sock, and one sock 1″ of the way finished…

I haven’t given up on the two socks at once on one set of double points. I am going to try again, this time using a multicolored yarn, and work really hard to keep my purl stitches tight. Will post when I do!