Thursday, February 21, 2008

Knitters without Borders... oh, and socks!

One of the best things about being a member of an online knitting community is getting to meet fellow knitters you might never have met in real life. Not only have I met local knitters with whom I can meet up regularly, but we've been visited by knitting 'tourists' who happen to be in town for one reason or another. This is how I met Stariel (in fact, Stariel's visit was the catalyst for the Portland knitters to actually get together the first time)! One of my favorite memories though was getting to meet Gundel in Germany while on my whirlwind European vacation in 2006. Since I spent most of the time traveling on my own, it was great to get to meet up with someone I 'knew' and to get a personalized tour of her city.


Well tonight we had the pleasure of meeting Nimbus who was visiting from Canada. We had a blast at Knit-Night and then went out for some super yummy Thai food. Now if that wasn't enough excitement... I finally decided to learn how to knit two socks on two circulars!

I got as far as the magic cast-on... which was pretty fun I have to say... and the first increases. In case you're wondering... I know I'm using two different skeins of yarn. They are both Opal - one given to me by Gundel and the other by Magatha. I didn't want to divide them out and rewind them. Unlike *some* people I can't yet knit two socks on one needle from two ends of the same ball of yarn. =P I need a little more help keeping track of what I'm doing! I figure I can knit these two and go back and knit the matching pair. Or you know... I could just wear two different colored socks.




As threatened... I'm also going to gripe about store-bought socks for a minute. For full effect imagine me hand on hip & shakin' my finger! SOCKS DON'T FIT ME! Regular 'Ladies' socks (labled size 5-10... who are they kidding??) don't come anywhere close to fitting. I went down to little boys socks because usually little boy shoes fit just fine. But as you can see below... the grey "heel" is no where near my heel! It bunches up behind my ankle & hangs out over my shoe.


(Don't worry - I don't wear those socks with those shoes)

I've had some luck finding socks in the little girl's department... but it's tough to find just plain socks in those sizes. My hope is that if I finally find a way of knitting socks that I actually enjoy (I can't stand double-points!) I'll be able to knit custom fit socks. Wish me luck!

6 comments:

Sue, aka seiding said...

Oh, yes. You must learn to enjoy knitting socks. I totally understand about the socks not fitting--so frustrating! My problem is women's socks are usually too big and boys socks are too small. Grr.

Bezzie said...

Oo..there's another confession...seeing socks knit on two circs gives me the heebies too...all that yarn and cord...eeeeeek!!!! But good luck to you knitting them!

My store bought socks fit OK, but I'm loving winter where I can get away with not wearing them and knitting my own. In the summer it's too hot for wool socks.

Beverly said...

Hopefully you'll end up liking the 2 circ method. If not, you should definitely try magic loop. I never understood the attraction to sock knitting until I dumped the DPNs and learned magic loop. Now they're my favorite thing to knit and I'm on my way to ditching all my store-bought socks.

Missamite said...

You know, It doesn't quite have the same effect as in person.

Next we lure you to the dark sides of spinning and magic loop.

Thanks for a great time last night!

Olga said...

So, I'm looking at this teeny tiny foot and thinking," What the heck?! Is her foot like a double oo narrow or what?" The happy part is that your socks will go SUPER fast. Try knitting a size ten like I wear- takes FOREVER to get to the toes. But I'm not bitter......

Rebel said...

Olga - that's just the toe. Yes, I wear a size 5(ish) shoe... but my feet are wide, 8.5 inches around... so they won't go *that* fast! ;)