After some poking around on Rav, I settled on the pattern Hedera by Cookie A. What drew me to this sock was the lovely lace pattern. To make sure variegation changes wouldn't take away from the lace, I choose to use a solid colorway as shown in the pattern pictures. My choice - some Opal yarn I found hiding in my cedar chest. A beautiful shade of purple.
To mix things up a bit, I decided to try making this pair two at a time. I've been considering doing this for awhile, but had some apprehensions about doing it this way. At the top of the list was having to split my yarn into two balls (assuming I chose something that came in a 100g hank or skein form - which of course I did). Now, normal people would split yarn using a kitchen scale to make sure it was done evenly. That way, they'd be assured each cake weighed 50 grams. However, since I tend to take the more difficult and unreliable route nine times out of ten, I just "eyed it." Yep, that's right, I split my skein of yarn by first winding up the skein into a cake and then taking one of the ends and winding it into a second cake that "looked" about the same size. In the end I came close to getting evenly sized cakes however they are not perfectly even. One is bigger than the other. All I can say to this is - thank goodness I have small feet! I believe this will be my saving grace.
Another apprehension I had about making two socks at one time was the need to buy more needles - yet again - so I could learn Magic Loop. At the moment the only circular needles I own that are sock size are 24" long. Not long enough for Magic Loop. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to learning Magic Loop or purchasing more needles for that matter. It's just with every new project I want to I find the need to purchase something. It feels like at this rate I'm going all my retirement money will be "invested" in knitting supplies and there will be no money left to actually retire on. Personally speaking, I'd like to have some money around for later on in life so maybe, just maybe, I can actually retire and sit around all day knitting should my heart desire to do so. The solution to this problem . . . Instead of "investing" in more needles so I could use the Magic Loop method, I started the first sock using two circular needles and then put it on a set of DPNs. Then I started the second sock. Once I was established with that one I put the first sock on my circulars with the second. Something like this:
The last obstacle that was brought to my attention was the possibility of the yarn from each cake getting tangling. To avoid that I . . .
Put each cake in its own project bag.
On a scale of 1 to 10, my feeling towards the two socks at a time method is somewhere around a 7 at the moment. In its favor I like cranking through each step of the socks row-by-row/repeat-by-repeat. I can see myself loving this as I get closer to the end. I also like knowing that I am doing the same number of rows for each sock rather than hoping they'll be the same length at the end. The thing I like least at the moment, and what knocks my rating down to a 7, is getting use to managing two cakes of yarn at the same time. I'm hoping this is something I'll learn to adjust to over time or figure out a great way to handle. (Any tips on this are welcome!)
On that note, there is only one thing left to share -
I told you the lace pattern was lovely!
Until later . . .
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1 comment:
To manage both balls of yarn, I keep a bag of yarn on each side of me. Once I've completed a round, I just rotate the socks in the direction that will untwist the yarn. If you do this after each row, it takes almost no time at all.
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