Thursday, February 11, 2010

On to Socks!

Yes, I have finally tired of knitting scarves and have decided to move on to a new challenge. I do believe it's time for socks!

Last night the knitting bug bit me while I was peacefully lying in bed, minding my own business. And suddenly I was up, turning on the light, and searching all my knitting books on the shelf (unfortunately, most of them are at the school) for sock patterns. Well, I found two. One called for dpns and mine are in the shed, buried under snow and ice. The other was a crochet pattern -- no thank you. So, it's on to the Internet to save me. By the way, I did attempt the first pattern by substituting bamboo skewers from my kitchen drawer instead of double pointed needles. Does it work? NO. They aren't sanded so the yarn just catches. It was a silly idea but just goes to show you the height of my desperation. I'm using a fabulous hand-painted 50% wool/50% alpaca blend yarn by Lonesome Stone out in Colorado and I don't want it all torn up by cheap bamboo skewers.

In my hunt for a free knitting pattern for socks that uses two needles, I found this one and promptly began knitting it. Now, I have a different weight of wool so I had to adjust the measurements a bit. But what I'm in the market for is thick wool socks that I can use when camping, skiing, or backpacking (instead of always borrowing my friend's SmartWool socks) so I don't mind the yarn being thicker; it just changes the math slightly.

Her pattern mentions 2.75 mm needles so I had to go online again to see what size that is and found this handy site to help you convert knitting needle sizes back and forth.

Both of these sites are part of the Free Knitting Pattern Netring. Anyone else feel like spending some time online, indulging in fantasies of things-yet-to-be-knitted?


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