Sunday, February 12, 2006

Proof I've started

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In a shocking and rare act of non-procrastination I have actually STARTED one of the socks for the Knitting Olympics. I'm knitting it in 8-ply Cleckheaton Country so it will definitely be one of the thicker and warmer varieties. I figure if it is too thick to wear in my boots, I'll keep them as bedsocks for winter. I've cast on 48 stiches on 3.75mm needles and will be going down to 3.25 mm needles at some stage in the pattern. I'm warping the pattern a fair bit as my feet are so wide - a men's average in width but a woman's average in length.

While I will certainly be striving to do my best, I refuse to set myself up for failure. Plenty of time to knit socks in skinny yarn once I get down the basic tecnique in normal yarn. Particularly when knitting to a deadline.

The pattern called for an "Old Norweigan Cast-On" and much to my surprise I could actually follow the diagrams to loop the wool around my fingers and manipulate the needle to do the cast-on. But the result wasn't terribly even and after several attempts and studyng the 'look' for a bit I worked out that one got exactly the same result with my usual two-needle cast-on method. So although I could see that the Old Norweigen Cast-On would be quicker once one got it down pat, in the end I gave up and reverted to my old habbits. Bite me.

In other knitting news, the baby hat for Sam's new kid was a failure. It just looks terribly uneven and badly handmade, even after ironing. Serves me right for trying to be smart and make it out of recyled wool that had been knitted up in some other garment and shoved in a cupboard for more than 30 years. I had to go to Target today to get some trackpants for myself, so I ended up buying a set of 3 Winnie The Pooh socks in a blue shade that came in a cute little pencil-case style bag.

1 comment:

Carrie K said...

Go Maggie B!

And working out a method that the Old Norweigan cast on resembles is awesome.