My mystery socks are coming along nicely. I really like this pattern, as I think I’ve said before. The odd things, though, is that I am somehow now more comfortable reading the pattern as words, and the chart form is confusing to me. I don’t know why. It’s not in weird notation, and I’ve been reading charts for years now. What is up with me lately? As is my wont, I have made some errors that I find inexplicable. I’m paying a ton of attention, I get the right stitch count every round, I haven’t unknowingly dropped any stitches, and still there are a couple of glaring imperfections. Actually, they’re just glaring to me because I know they’re there, but a lot of people have seen these babies, and they’ve all been in raptures about them.

I’m doing this pair two at a time, as I have been lately. I had to remove one pair from the circular needle when I dropped the stitches for half a sock and had to go back a few rounds, and it was nice to briefly have a pair of dpns. I considered doing one using the magic loop and leaving the other pair on the dpns. I do know people who will do a pair of socks at the same time, but not on the same needle, but I don’t want to try that method now. I’ll see how this pair comes out, and if there are appreciable differences, then I’ll consider it.

I’m now on twitter! Random, I know. Anyway, I’ve starting talking to other knitters there. I’ve given one encouragement about switching to continental knitting from English style. I’m really liking the way this has turned out for me, even though I sometimes still use English if I know I’m not paying a lot of attention or am tired and want the comfort of familiarity. I hope that, in time, I will go back to English style less and less until I don’t do it at all.

I’ve figured out which socks to make for my secret exchange person, and I bought this gorgeous yarn for it, but before I start, I want to knock out one other pair of socks using 1) the continental method and 2) the magic loop. I’m making nopurl monkeys. I’ve made the regular pattern before and found it a breeze, so if I have trouble with this easier version, I’ll know that it was my methods, not the pattern that defeated me. It took me a week to do two socks separately, so I think I should be able to finish the two in a similar time frame. The socks that I want to knit for the exchange are more complicated, but I feel like I should have a better idea of my skill level after finishing these socks (or not, as the case may be).

I finished Terea’s monkey socks! I’m so glad that they’re done, because it’s always so satisfying to finish a project, but they were fun and quick to knit, and I miss the project already! This is me modeling them, just because.

I was going to make a pair of monkeys for myself, but then I saw another pair of socks by Cookie A, Hedera, and I knew I had to make those! She’s such an amazing designer. I have this lovely sea green yarn by Brooklyn Handspun, and I think it’s perfect for this project. I opened my Magic Loop book and tried it out, and I really get this method! I’m sure, though, that I’ll find a way to eff up these socks using this method. To make things really interesting, I’m going to try them toe up.