So, despite saying that I couldn’t finish the Having Hope socks before our anniversary, I decided to try anyway. I was with Mr B a lot over the weekend, though as he doesn’t notice what I’m knitting unless I wave it under his nose, I knew I could work on the sock pretty safely in his presence. I knitted a few rounds waiting for a train on Saturday morning, and had a cute conversation with a small girl who was interested in my “sewing”. I explained that it was knitting and was a sock, which she said was very big. I pointed out that it was for a very big foot.

I spent the next three days knitting, and was on course for them to be handed over on Tuesday evening. But in the end, I was undone by my compulsion to block every present. The second sock was off the needles at around 2.30pm on Tuesday and I still had them drying on their blockers with the fan going full blast at 7pm. When I realised that having socks on the bedroom floor is a bit of a giveaway for a surprise present, I gave up. Mr B was briefly handed a pair of damp socks to admire and then they were left to dry overnight to be worn the next day.

Pattern: Having Hope by Diane Mulholland
Yarn: 1 x 110g Middlearthknitter Yarns Sock Yarn (80% bluefaced leicester, 20% nylon), custom colourway
Needles: Knit Picks 2.5mm 80cm long circulars

I used almost every scrap of the yarn to knit these. I didn’t realise just how much I had used for the first sock until I was knitting past the heel on the second and noticed that the remaining yarn didn’t seem to be as much as I thought it should be… I weighed the first sock and it was over 50g. This was obviously not good, as I was working on the basis that I had a 100g skein of yarn (and learnt an important lesson in that I should weigh yarn BEFORE I start knitting…). Probably a little too late, I weighed the remainder of the yarn, knit a pattern repeat and weighed it again, which reassured me that it would be a close thing, but I should have enough yarn to knit the second sock to the same size as the first one and wouldn’t have to frog part of the first sock to make a matching pair. And I did, with about 2g of yarn left!

The yarn is a delicious BFL and nylon blend which is softer than “regular” sock yarn and blooms A LOT after washing. I need to use a yarn with nylon in it else the socks don’t last five minutes (you really don’t want to see the state of Mr B’s Jules socks..!) so it’s nice to have a yarn that doesn’t feel like it’s made of barbed wire.

The pattern was a delight to knit and beautifully written. I would never have knitted such an intricate design for men’s socks before, because of the amount of work involved. But the end result looks splendid and Mr B loves them, which makes it totally worthwhile and now I want to knit some more fancy manly socks.

Plus I’ve learnt Magic Loop which was almost as much of an epiphany as learning to knit socks in the first place. I love this method! Going back to dpns seems very strange now. I suspect I’ll be Looping many more pairs from now on.

Maybe it *was* the thought that I only had a few rows left to do on my first Having Hope sock that made me wake up at 4am the other morning. Mr B regularly gets up a stupid o’clock to go travelling all over the country to avoid me for work, but normally I never even stir when the alarm goes off. But for some reason I was awake and chirpy and after deciding that no, I wasn’t going to be able to nod off again, I switched on the radio and picked up my knitting. By 6.30 the sock was finished.

With not a peep from the small people, I decided to cast on for #2 in the vain hope that I can avoid Second Sock Syndrome. I didn’t think I’d actually be *able* to cast on because I had only done a Turkish cast on once before (for the first sock) and figured I’d have to get up and come down to the pc to look up the directions once again. But somehow, with the needles and yarn in my hands, it all came together. My dodgy brain, which can’t even furnish me with the correct names for my children at times (fortunately “darling” is multi-purpose!) had somehow stored the cast on somewhere in a spare brain cell and I managed to knit the entire toe before I was disturbed with demands requests for breakfast.

This is the most intricate sock I’ve knitted for Mr B and seeing as how he has size 11 feet (that’s a US shoe size 11½), it was both intricate *and* time consuming. I should say, it’s a gorgeous pattern. I would have bought it if it was crap, of course, because it’s for a good cause, but being Diane’s design, it’s most definitely not crap at all and is rather beautiful and lovely. I love the cables (and learning to cable without a cable needle definitely helps!), the nifty little braid below the ribbing, and the heel flap which doesn’t require picking up stitches.

I also really enjoyed using Magic Loop. I didn’t see the appeal at all before I tried it, but having to only fiddle around changing needles once per round compared to two or three times when using dpns is a good thing. Also, I have never accidentally slid the needle out of the stitches..!

As I mentioned earlier, my only worry is SSS because the cuff was a bugger to knit. Not complicated, but knitting a sock from the top down means that once you’re past the heel, there’s only patterning on half of the foot. Going toe up means the “light relief” comes first. It was definitely a labour of love not to stop knitting sooner and make them girly ankle socks, though knowing that Mr B probably wouldn’t wear them if they were spurred me on!

I was vaguely hoping that I’d get the pair done for our wedding anniversary, but it’s only five days away now. Plain socks are doable. Intricate cabled socks, not so much.

I’m currently finishing off yet another round of secret knitting. All I can say is that I’ve had a design accepted for an upcoming sock book from Lark Books and apart from bouncing about with glee, it means knuckling down and knitting!

So while work on the Having Hope socks has been delayed, it’s given me time to get obsessive about the needles I use. As I mentioned in my last post about the socks, I bought some Prym circs which annoyed me and Diane helped me out by sending me some Addi Turbo circs instead.

Well, all was well for a while until the cord began to bother me. I like the cord on the Prym circs. It’s very fine and bends nicely. The Addi cord felt cumbersome in comparison, even though having the stitches slipping easily over the cord onto the needle was an improvement.

So I did the only thing I could do. I bought more needles.

Here we have my growing collection of 2.5mm 80cm long circular needles. The latest acquisition is at the top of the picture - a Knit Picks metal circ that has both a straight needle and thin cord. I have found needle perfection. For the moment…

Ever since I learnt to knit socks, I’ve done them the same way: top down with dpns. Last year I had an attempt at knitting them toe up with a short row heel but that one sock has languished in my stash ever since and will probably be frogged and turned into a nice plain sock. I didn’t particularly enjoy the casting on method with dpns, and the pattern is 2 x 2 rib all the way and therefore just a *bit* boring to knit.

So when Diane published her Having Hope sock pattern to raise funds for Cancer Research in Australia , I immediately bought it, but didn’t think that I would ever actually knit the socks. At least as the pattern was. Toe-up was bad enough, but magic loop as well? *shudders*

And then the yarn arrived. It’s another Cairi special: 75% wool/25% nylon sock yarn for long lasting socks and a beautiful semi-solid teal colourway:

Mr B is getting more and more adventurous with his sock colours ever since I started knitting them for him. I wasn’t sure the colours would be manly enough, but he loves them (much to Diane’s disappointment!).

Anyway, with such lovely yarn to be used, I decided I may as well give it a go. One pair of needles quickly bought from one of my favourite eBay stores (more about those in a minute), and I was set.

I trawled the internet for directions on how to do a Turkish Cast On. There are a lot tutorials available; I think the first one I came across was FluffyKnitterDeb’s, but they were all very clear; I just had to try it about half a dozen times because for some reason I was always ending up one stitch short. I don’t quite know what I did in the end, but I finally managed to cast on enough stitches and away I went!

Having never even tried to Magic Loop before, I was surprised how easy it was to master. It’s fairly intuitive - the cord needs to be in a certain place so that you can use one end of the needles to knit the stitches off the other and after a few rounds, I was whizzing along. But the needles (Prym) aren’t the best for the job and I’m going to change to Addis as soon as I have some. I do like Prym circs as a rule, but the needles bend as they join to the cord and when you’re sliding stitches up and down all the time, having to move them over the bump every time is time consuming. But for the time being, I’m happy to use them and watch as my sock grows from a toe into a foot.

I feel like I did when I first knit socks; everything is new and exciting and just a little scary. There’s a lot to be said for being so familiar with the way to knit something that you can do it in your sleep, but I’m really enjoying the edge-of-my-seat sock knitting experience as well.

Has it been a week since I posted already?! The last week disappeared in a blur of Finishing Important Secret Stuff for the magazine, without even a cupcake to tide me over. So it was nice to cast on something completely different to have a break from knitting to a deadline for a while.

I’ve started knitting Kai’s Lotus Lace Socks using the Wild Fire Fibres BFL sock yarn.

The lace pattern is really enjoyable to knit. Not too tedious and not too complicated so that I’m dropping stitches all over the place. I confess that I didn’t read the ribbing directions properly which is why I’ve ended up with a k1, p1 rib. Ribbing is the boring part of knitting a sock, so by the time I’d realised my mistake, I was almost done, so not about to frog it! The yarn is dreamy to work with. It’s striping slightly, but not enough to obscure the lace, which is good. Think I might potter about a bit today and knit some more.

I was going to post that I haven’t bought any yarn this year because people keep giving it to me, but then I realised that wasn’t quite true, seeing as I had bought the yarn for Mr B’s boring socks and then the yarn for the Catherine Socks. So maybe I’ll rephrase that and say that I haven’t bought any yarn for a project all for ME ME ME! Until now, that is.

Today I received a squishy parcel of Wild Fire Fibres Superwash Blue Faced Leicester in “Blueberry Muffin”. Vikki even enclosed a tiny box (the sort of size that is perfect for a mouse to keep their best hat in) containing some stitchmarkers.

The yarn is gorgeous. The purpleness drew me to it in the first place, and I have never tried Blue Faced Leicester for socks before, so clearly it was a matter of doing important yarn research that I buy it.

And in one of those lovely coincidental happenings that must happen because the knitting gods are smiling at me and saying “buy yarn because you’ll need it!”, while I was waiting for it to arrive, lovely if spinning wheel obsessed Kai has published her first ever pattern, Lotus Lace Socks!

The pattern is just perfect for my new yarn. They look lovely in purple, and the lace isn’t going to be overpowered by the yarn variegation. I can’t wait to cast on as soon as I possibly can!

…almost! Mr B’s sixth pair of handknitted socks are finished. He has more pairs of socks than me, but I don’t mind. He wears them, asks for them, and he knows that if he ever even whispered about the amount of yarn I have that there would be no more handknitted socks for him! *evil grin*

Pattern: None to speak of
Yarn: 1 x 100g Trekking XXL, shade #184.
Needles: 2.25mm Susan Bates Silvalume needles of loveliness

Of course, there was some sort of pattern involved. A very basic, cast on 68, half for the heel flap, a quarter for the stitches picked up, etc. Nice, mindless knitting. And once a tad more secret knitting is finished, I can start thinking about something that should have been done a while ago..!