Sock it to me

Have you ever had projects which seem to gather bad karma, the way TV screens gather dust?  The ones which, no matter how you try, just don't seem to click?  I seemed to have that with cuff-down socks.  I had a pair which I tried to knit on double points; it didn't work.  I then tried it on magic loop and ended up knitting back on myself.  The third time I cast on, the needles sat in the WIP bin and when I tried to do anything with them, they ended up so tight on the cable, they wouldn't budge.

Meanwhile Andi is knitting a pair of socks every month for a year, choosing the yarn at random.  I've got about siz month's worth of yarn if I wanted to do the same.  Janna has done a recent post on knitting socks.  My friend Fluffy Owl has shared some beautiful socks on Instagram.  The watermelon socks were particularly luscious.  Let's Knit magazine in the UK is celebrating a summer of socks.  Where am I going wrong?


So on Thursday evening, my friend JP taught me to knit toe-up and it's brilliant.  It made me feel good, and apparently I was grinning like a loon.  She used this cast-on and I was off.  In the space of less than 48 hours it's grown quicker than I realised it would.  Thank goodness for train journeys!

After we left John Lewis, Thursday evening.

Friday morning, after Thursday's train journey home

Friday morning, after the journey to work

Saturday morning, after Friday's delayed journey home

I love that I can see the progress by the way the stripes change.  For those interested, the yarn is Sirdar Heart and Sole in colourway 104 - Move to the Groove.

If I spend the next six months knitting toe-up stockinette socks in self-patterning yarns, I think I can cope with that.  Maybe I'll get a bit more confident with magic loop and try another cuff-down pattern.  Maybe I'll get too impatient of knitting the two socks individually and will try knitting them both at the same time.  (Also good for making sure you get identical twins, rather than fraternal twins).  Who knows!

But first, please excuse me whilst I learn to turn the heel.....