Okay, I said I'd try them, and I did.

Well, I gave the double knitted socks a try to see if I can do it, and I can, although I frogged them after a couple of rounds. It wasn't because I did something wrong, it's because they didn't look like they were going to fit me, so I'm just going to recast on more stitches-if I'm going to make socks, I want them to fit. I did find out that the long tail cast on can be done with both yarns on one needle with no extra hands-and it's much less stressful than trying the knitted cast-on that she does in her Knitty article.

It's really not as hard or nerve-wracking as it may sound from the article either. The only tedious part is doing that first round and keeping your yarns straight. If you look closely, you'll be able to see which stitch is which and which one needs to be worked next if you happen to leave it for any length of time, but a solution to that is to leave off at the end of a needle so that you know where you are.

Anyway, this should be an interesting experience. I'm trying 40 stitches each instead of 32-I have a pretty wide foot, so it shouldn't hurt. I'm using #3 DPNs and Lion Wool yarn in Winter White.

It's actually easier to see where I'm at than I thought it would be-even if I'm in the middle of a needle I can still see at a glance which end I need to use-the WW wool makes it pretty easy to see the front and back pieces. How it would do with sock yarn I have yet to find out, but I might get some sock weight (I.E. baby) yarn and see.

I'll keep a running update on my progress, but so far the hardest part has been joining and knitting the first knit round before starting the ribbing. I will say this-I would go a bit slowly doing the ribbing, as you can easily get confused-especially doing the first round. After that it's much easier as you can see which are knit stitches and which are purl stitches-just remember to keep the yarns from twisting and all should be well.

An amendment: Do not do this if you're going to be distracted by anything-I had to tink back to the first rib row on the third needle instead of using a hook, simply because there were more crossed stitches than I realized. It's all straightened out now, and hopefully I won't do that again. I will definitely only be working on them when I'm not chatting or otherwise distracted by something else. And definitely don't do it if you're tired-that would be the biggest distraction of all. Double knitting requires much more concentration than regular knitting. No, I'm not going to chuck it-it was my own fault, I'm simply going to go from where I left off and chug along-just to say I did it.