Socks are hard

I like to knit. My sister & I spent some time in a school in Germany, and all those girls would watch TV every night and knit. Besides having to watch "Bobby from Dallas" in a "new" show we knew was from 6 years earlier and enduring "The Man From Atlantis" dubbed in German, we were bored. So one of the girls took pity on our fidgeting fingers and lent us spare needles & yarn & got us both started.

So since '83, I've been knitting off & on. Usually it's pretty easy stuff though - mostly rectangular shapes like scarves & baby blankets. I occasionally make a pullover or hat. Lately all these nice fuzzy yarns have hit the market, so they've been fun to play with. Then I found this chunky warm yarn, and decided to go ahead & try making socks.

First off, you can't use the standard knitting needles - you must have double-pointed needles, which let you slide the yarn from one side to the other so you can knit on both ends. These are not usually sold at Wal-Mart, Joann's or your standard one-size-fits-all craft store. You MUST either visit a yarn website or go to a yarn store. I think we have one yarn store in town now, so that's where I got my (german made) double-pointed needles.

Then you need pretty good eyesight to even SEE the instuctions printed on the inside of the yarn label. I managed it anyway, but I did have to drag out my book entitled "Knitting Know How" to figure out what they were talking about on the label about picking up stitches.

There are 4 needles in use at this point.





You need to split the yarn once you get to the ankle and make a "heel flap." Then you have to go back & pick up stitches along the sides to bring the heel around and make it all one circle again. I don't have any problem casting on or off, but counting each line is a pain. That's not necessary with rectangle shapes!

But I'm happy how they turned out. I will probably go ahead and use the double-pointed needles for other things, like hats or something, but I don't know if I want to try socks again for a while.

Still, with the weather we've been having, it's nice to have some really warm socks!

:)