Sample Socks Are Knitted.

   These socks are not perfect, but that's mostly because they are made from 100% cotton yarn and the cotton yarn was a bear to knit.  But cotton yarn is a nice cheap way to make a sample pair of socks (these would fit a small child).  I really love making socks two at a time with magic loop.  I love being able to finish both socks at the same time.  So clever and casting the toes on first and getting that section grafted in the beginning is awesome.

    These are my second pair of sample socks.  I made a pair of these a few years ago when I first bought my "Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time Socks" book by Melissa Morgan Oakes.  The instructions in the book were great.  Easy to understand with lots of information on how to do increases, short rows, and knitting wrapped stitches.

      When I made these socks the first time, a few years ago I wasn't ready to commit to making a real pair of socks I could wear.  I'm ready to try my hand at real socks now.

     Here are the socks right before I cast off.

    Here they are with the ends woven in and the some of the major ladders stitched up.  I put the yellow sock on top because the heel on that sock came out better than the orange sock.  I lost my train of thought on the orange sock and didn't pick up my wraps on the orange sock and I'm surprised there aren't great big holes in the heel.  You can still see the wraps on the stitches in the heel cup of the orange sock.  Sloppy.

   These were really good practice.  I'm going to make some notes about how many stitches I need to get good fit on a sock for myself and I'll be casting those on in a couple of weeks.  I have some sewing and some other knitting to do in the meantime.

Practice Sock Knitting And A Doily Update

   So I finally started my practice socks.  I'm making the practice socks from the Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time Sock book by Melissa Morgan-Oakes.

    Sock knitting fascinates me because knitters who make socks make it sound so super simple.  There are several ways to knit socks, you can make them cuff down one at a time or cuff down two at a time or toe up one at a time or toe up two at a time.  The possibilities seem endless to me.  When I found out you can knit them two at a time on one needle, I wanted to learn.

  The practice socks in this book are great because you get to practice all the different techniques you have to learn to knit socks.  This is my progress so far, this is the cast-on and where I start the increases for the toes.  I had to re-knit the cast-on several times to get it right.  I'm using Peaches and Creme cotton yarn with size 8 (5.0 mm) Knit Picks Harmony wood needles with a 40" cable for these practice socks.  I'm not in a hurry to get these done.  I may have to re-do them several times before I finally finish them.

    My crochet doily project that I started at Christmas has been frogged.  The pattern that I bought was not written very well and I had some trouble on round 5.  I tried to contact the designer to ask her about the directions in the pattern through several different channels but I never heard back from her.  I figured out the problem with round 5 and fixed it, then I got to round 12 and the instructions were really vague and I knew that I wouldn't be able to work around it, so I took my work apart to reuse the thread and I'm deleting the pattern from my library.  By the way, that pattern was the Gossamer Doily by Priscilla's Crochet (Priscilla Hewitt).  It was a really pretty doily.  I paid $1.00 for it but that was $1.00 wasted.

    So I bought a new doily pattern from the Leisure Arts website yesterday.  It's called Daydream Doily by Ocie Jordan.  I hope to start that pattern in a few days.