It’s been a hell of a week. There’s a lot of upheaval in my life right now and, honestly, the socks have gone on the back burner. Hopefully I will be up and running again soon, and I’ll make some headway on a sock project.
I do still have one pair on the needles, but I don’t think I’m going to continue with them. I’m referring to my Orange is the New Awesome socks that I posted about last week. In a lot of ways, these were a successful experiment. I learned how to do Judy’s Magic Cast-On and got a start on toe-up TAAT socks. The problem is that my gauge is a little off, the fabric is really too stretchy, and the pattern I chose seemed very easy but is actually very fiddly and more tedious than I want right now. I initially decided to get through a few pattern repeats, see how the cables affected the fabric, and then decide whether or not to frog. However, the cable rows are just. not. fun. Every 4th and 8th row consists of one stitch cables all the way across. Ordinarily, no big deal. There are a bunch of ways to work those without having to use a cable needle and I thought I could just use right twists and left twists. However, since the back stitch for each cable is a purl and the front stitch is a knit tbl, I couldn’t find a way to do them quickly. I tried doing the cables without a cable needle, which basically consists of popping a stitch off the needle and then catching it back up, but…with tiny stitches on US2s and yarn that’s just a touch splitty, that didn’t work at all. I don’t mind doing cables, but this was just taking forever.
They look cool, but I think it would take me months to finish them!
So, I’m back to the drawing board. I’d really like to do my next pair toe-up and TAAT, but I don’t actually have the right size needles to do that with sock weight yarn. That’s hard to believe because, well, I’ve got about a million knitting needles, but it’s the truth! Hopefully by next Thursday I’ll have some inspiration and get started on a new pair.
In the meantime, check out my fellow Thursday sock knitters! Paula blogs at Spin a Yarn and Hannah blogs at unsophisticated + jejune. I believe Paula’s on vacation at the moment, but you can check out her past sock exploits!
Happy sock knitting!
alexand knits 
I do love orange and I do love Judy’s Magic Cast-On! Beautifully knit, as always!
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Thank you 🙂
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I’ve read from some knitters that TAAT and Magic Loop can be fiddly. I like Judy’s Magic Cast On although I’ve honestly only used it once some time ago. I’d like to knit another sock toe up. This style for some reason fits my feet really well but I like how I’m getting experience with my 0’s with cuff down.
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I like it so far. It is a little fiddly, but I don’t really mind. I just really want to do TAAT because my second socks tend to turn out snugger than my firsts! I guess I get more confident on the second one or something.
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I forgot to type sorry you’re having a lot of upheaval right now. Go buy some yarn.
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Thanks 🙂
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Sometimes, you just need something simple! Seriously. It really is a gorgeous color and I love the adorable project keeper. It looks beautiful too; however if it’s not working out…well, I’m sure you’ve already frogged them. I spent what little time I had to knit, finishing my test knit shawl this past week. I did get two more rows into my socks but that was on Friday. I’ll be back next Thursday with an update 🙂
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I did finally decide to frog them, but I haven’t actually ripped them out yet. It makes me sad! But, they were a great learning experience so it was a worthwhile project.
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