9.17.2007

Socks(ish) on two circs?

Last year I knit a pair of fingerless gloves for my Mom out of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. She owns an estate-sale business and frequently finds herself in under-heated houses, storage units, and warehouses in the colder months. She also suffers arthritis in her hand bones (so sad for my knitting future, but that's another story). She wanted something warm and cozy that would still let her use her hands to rifle through buried treasure, and whatever I came up with had to be machine washable.

Interweave Knits did an article called "Gloves Made Easy" in its Winter 2003 issue- the first I ever bought! The article is eeeeexcellent- describes basic glove anatomy, how to do several different types of gussets, etc. I knit a pair of fingerless gloves based on the pattern in the article, and they turned out GREAT- good fit, perfect yarn, right color, all around a great project.

Until they got lost. The gloves got left at a friend's house, then put into a Christmas gift bag and returned to my Mom, and sadly thrown out Christmas morning in an attempt to clean up after the grandkids' Christmas Morning Messtacular. An honest mistake, and Mamacita feels HORRIBLE.

But she wants another pair. :-) So, I picked up some Louet Gems in the sport weight at one of Austin's new yarn stores (Gauge Knit, http://gaugeknit.com/). It's perfect. But I thought I'd teach myself a new trick, instead of facing a whole lot of stockinette. I decided to do them on two circular needles....

I'm using the tutorial at http://www.socknitters.com/2circs/index.htm, and it is excellent. But can I just say that this is really hard?? I've got the hang of it now, but dayum- I never would have discovered that I love to knit socks if I had started this way. I can see myself using it for plain stockinette socks so that I can avoid toes/legs of different lenghts, but otherwise I think I'll stick with my handy DPNs.

2 comments:

meg_knits said...

You are braver than I, who have not wandered down the road that is a project on two circs!

Missing you tons, babe! And thanks for the cookbook.

Debi said...

Try magic loop! I'm a DPN girl but I LOVE magic loop for toe up socks with the Turkish Cast On! I've tried 2 circs a few times and I just don't like it! Get yourself some addi lace or knitpics classic circs in 32" and you're good to go!