Sock Adventure

Cruising the web and looking at other people's knitting and spinning projects has had a curious effect. I began to feel in the mood to make socks. I've done this once before using worsted weight yarn, but this time, I wanted real sock yarn. The adventure began yesterday. Daughter #2 went to the "Art Yarn" shop with me for an hour of dreaming and ooooing and ahhhing. This place is fabulous. I finally decided on GGH Marathon, "Sport- und Strumpfgarn". Heheheh. I take it this is German for sport and sock yarn. ;-) Glad to see my German isn't too rusty. It's 72% superwash, 25% polyamide, and 3% viscose. It's also "maschinenwaschbar". I got a variegated green and Erin got the same yarn in browns/reds/etc.

Next it was home to find a pattern. As I was in the dreaming stage, it seemed like everyone had a free sock pattern to share. Not so much when I was actually looking for one. I finally found some at Wise Needle and chose the pine tree pattern to go with the green theme. http://www.wiseneedle.com/knitpatterns.asp#socks The pattern starts with this very weird, who--could-ever-think-this-one-up cast on. It lets you avoid sewing the toe, and it was much fun. However, the newness made it difficult and the microscopic needles weren't helping. I'm used to bulky weight yarn and I've been knitting scarves on size 15. Now I'm knitting socks on size 1. But, so far, so good. The toe is shaped and I'm happy to be knitting the rounds for the foot (no counting or paying attention needed). The yarn knits up in weird little non-distinct stripes, which adds to the fun.

Erin is crocheting gloves out of hers. We were both stitching and ripping out last night. Much fun. Here's our progress:

I really should be grading papers.