Sock-a-rific!

On Wednesday I started a sock-a-long with my cousin, "C", who lives in the Carolinas. She has knitted in the round before for mittens but has not yet tried socks. Since I was itching to knit another pair after the Harry Potter socks and to use a much better instructional book for my second pair, I asked her if she'd be interested in the sock-a-long.

We're using the following book - Teach Yourself Visually: Knitting Socks. I LOVE this book! The instructions are great and the photos are excellent. It is sooooo much better than the book I used for my first pair of socks. We were going to each use a skein of the ShiBui knits yarn I bought in Portland last year. I shipped one skein down to her and then I finally got around to winding my skein. I was less than amused when I had the finished ball in front of me. No way was there enough yarn for two socks, contrary to what I was told when I bought the yarn. Sure enough I checked the yardage on the label and then the yardage needed for the pattern and it was only enough yarn for one sock. D'oh!

Luckily, I had the perfect solution.

A couple years ago --- has it really been that long??? --- I bought some Socks That Rock yarn in blue to crochet Sean a pair of socks. I bought 2 skeins knowing that a crocheted pair would need the extra yarn. I had never made the socks because after my first pair of crocheted socks, I knew they would be too thick for Sean to wear. So quietly in my stash the skein waited patiently...

...until I yanked them out, stuck one in an envelope and the other on the swift.

It took a while for the sock-a-long to get started given other projects going on and general busyness of life. It was on Wednesday when we started. "C" was going to her knitting group and I had given up hope of finishing the baby blanket any time soon. The sock yarn was calling to me and it would have been rude not to answer.

Here's all I have so far. The k1-p1 ribbing always seems to take forever so I'm only a few rounds into the stockinette stitch. The sock color is "In the Navy" and I'm using size 1 DPNs. I'm yanking on the second stitch of each DPN to avoid the dreaded ladders. So far, it seems to be working.



You can see the Shi Bui knits ball - less than half of half a skein of the Socks that Rock yarn. You can also see Seamus hoping to get his paws on the ball of yarn. While a cat will take the ball of yarn to play with it, when Seamus gets a hold of a ball of yarn, he runs off playing catch-me-if-you can, gnawing on the yarn as he runs and hides. Funny to watch but bad for the yarn.

I hope your socks are coming along well, too, "C"!