Saturday, May 02, 2009

Rambling on about socks

In this post I outlined the different ways to knit a pair of socks at the same time. I focused on DKing with DPNs because I was trying it and had posted about it at a community on LJ and got several negative responses touting it as grandstanding. Perhaps it is-but, as I also said-it's a perfectly valid option for the DPN lover who wants to make a basic pair of socks and doesn't like/can't use circulars.

Anyway-slow to finish things that I am, I've finally reached the heel. Now, rather than try to do the wrapped short row heel and do them both at the same time, I decided that, since I prefer the YO short row better, that I would get an extra needle, seperate the two heels and knit them seperately. This would really work if you had a five-needle set and only used four, saving the extra needle for the heel (and toe-I'm doing a short row toe as well). Me, I happen to have several four-needle sets in the size I'm using, so I just borrowed a needle from another set. I've finished the inside heel with one small unseen error and am working on the outside heel. I would already be done, but I've somehow made an error that I can't work around, so I frogged the heel all the way back, carefully put the stitches back on the needle and have started the heel over again.

Anyway, that error had nothing to do with DKing, it had to do with me not watching what I was doing.

It probably won't be the best pair of socks in the world since I'm practicing with some Bernat Soft Baby yarn but I'd rather practice my technique with cheap acrylic, then move on to nice sock yarn once I know what I'm doing.

Speaking of sock yarn, in this post I said my Mom asked me to knit her a pair of socks. Well, my LYS downtown had closed by the time I could afford to get any yarn, so I did the next best thing and went to KnitPicks and ordered some yarn for her socks, plus some circulars, and more yarn for me (so I could get free shipping). The order came out to almost the $60 I put on my son's prepaid credit card to be able to order, so I'll also be doing me some socks using the two on two circular method that I've also been practicing with some cheap yarn.

Anyway, that order should be coming in by Monday at the latest (Hopefully today) and I'll get to see if the good stuff I've been hearing about KnitPicks is true. If it is, I'll probably start ordering more yarn from them as I get extra money to. The prices are very reasonable for the yarn content compared with other well-known brands, and I'm one of those who likes to hang onto her money ;) (who doesn't?) and I just don't have the money to be able to try all those others that cost upwards of three times the price of KnitPicks for, what I can see, is the same yarn.

Anyway, I'll let you know when the order ges here. And if I can figure out the camera on this new phone, I might even include a picture.

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