Saturday, January 29, 2011

I'm knitting SOCKS!!!

Oh my. I'm all a-flutter.

One of my goals as a knitter was to learn to knit socks. With any luck, THIS YEAR. Everyone in my Friday Knitting Group (yeah, original...) knits socks. Lots of them. My LYS owner is even knitting them for her hubby using the Conjoined Creations "Flat Feet" yarn. The website for the yarn folks is http://www.conjoinedcreations.com/ but I couldn't find a direct link to Flat Feet. They've updated their website, however, so it might take a little hunting.

Basically, if I can digress for a moment, Flat Feet is yarn that does NOT come hanked or skeined. It's flat. In fact, it's hand-dyed, yummy yarn that you could take out of the package and wear as a scarf. You knit whatever you're knitting out of it by unraveling the pre-knitted yarn.

However, I'm not knitting with that yet. My LYS owner has hit upon a great system. You learn to knit on DPNs first. On worsted weight yarn. So I'm now in possession of size 7 DPNs and a ball of Encore Worsted in a lovely autumn colorway. And I'm tellin' ya. This is THE way to learn to knit socks.

First off, you can see what you're doing. I like small. I love counted cross-stitch, and for me, it's 18-count or smaller. But knitting is different. I want to see what I'm doing before I start knitting on toothpicks! And yes, I'd love to learn Magic Loop, but my LYS owner rightly says you have to "understand" the sock before you run right to Magic Loop.

My FIRST Sock!!
Here's a picture of my FIRST SOCK (I'm soooooooooooo excited) - I'm done turning the heel (which wasn't nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be) and I'm working on the instep.

I love the color. They have another theory at the LYS. You do two pairs. Immediately. That way, you imprint the process on your brain. And hey - if you're knitting on size 7 DPNs, not only (a) are you  impressing the heck out of people (don't tell them you only actually use TWO needles at a time - let 'em think it's really a skill!); but (b) you aren't going to poke your eyeballs out if you mess up. I actually re-started this one all by myself; I had "magically" inserted some yarn-overs...sometimes the DPNs will accidentally pick up a stitch. Anyway, I had 3 of them and I thought that even I couldn't live with that. But jeeze - with the larger needles and yarn, I was back to my starting point before I could even amaze myself with re-starting!

So I've already planned to do a brown pair - I need a brown pair to match some snow boots I have, and for the life of me, I can't find thick brown socks. The Encore is mostly wool, but some polyester. Lots of loft; you could wear these for booties around the house or very easily in clogs.

Someone now please tell me that Kitchener isn't all that hard!!!

2 comments:

Elayne said...

The sock looks great. I hate knitting on dp's. I always end up with a space between needles.

KnitWit said...

It's not so bad if you remember to tighten up the first 2 stitches when you move to the new needle.