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 finished my two-a-time-socks, and while I’m happy that they’re finished, things aren’t perfect. The two black and grey socks are pretty much the same size (there’s about an eight of an inch difference in length between the two socks), or at least close enough that I can live with it. The red and pink pair, though, are nowhere near close in size. I don’t understand how they ended up being so different. I finished them last night before i went to bed, hoping that the second red sock would grow overnight, but no dice. I’m not necessarily a perfectionist, but I need things to look a little better than this, so I’m going to rip out the decreases for the toe, add more rows, and then finish again. The whole thing shouldn’t take more than an hour to fix , but it’s still demoralizing.

Never let it be said that I am not talented. My specific talent would be to get completely turned around whilst doing things that should by this point be totally routine for me. I’m finishing up the two at a time socks, and simultaneously practicing my Continental-style knitting. I’m really proud of myself, because I’ve made great strides and now I’m faster this way than I was the other way. I still need to pay a lot of attention, but I am really getting this. So this pride may be the cause of today’s mistake, although I do not discount your garden variety knitting retardedness. While doing the heels of the second pair of socks, I somehow got all tangled up on sock A and then I was stuck on the needles, unable to get cleanly to either sock. Did I pick up stitches incorrectly? Did I just confuse myself? I was simultaneously knitting and helping a coworker cut the cord between herself and her 19 yo daughter, so I will condede that I was not paying as much attention to my socks as I could have been.

So I found my tapestry needle. It was not, as I feared, in the bag with some project that I barely started before abandoning it. No, it was actually in my handbag! It had fallen out of the little stitch marker pouch that I keep it in, so while none of the stitch markers fell out, the two thin tapestry needles I had in it did. No worries. It occurred to me when I got home from work yesterday that I should look in my purse before getting all crazy and tearing through my knitting projects, and sure enough, I saw two shiny little needles amongst the piles of stuff that fell out of my bag. I was busy last night (what kind of freak goes to the 10:45 movie showing after working until 9? That would be me…), so I finished up this afternoon during my break. Here is the finished product.

I am almost finished with my two-at-a-time socks. I did the last 4 inches of stockinette using the continental knitting method, and I’m really proud of myself. The socks are really cute, and I would have finished them completely, except I somehow left my tapestry needle somewhere. And I don’t even know where! I’m going to check the bag I used to carry the baby socks I made last month, because that’s the last time I remember doing kitchener stitch, but I somehow feel like I’ve had that needle more recently than that. So we’ll see when I get home. I’ll upload a picture once the socks are finished and the ends are woven in.

Here are my socks right now. I’m really jazzed because I realized that being 60% of the way through a sock means that I am also 60% of the way through this project. I think that I will definitely use this technique in the future!

My two-at-a-time socks are still going swimmingly. I’m making them according to the pattern provided in the book, and I have to say that this heel seems needlessly tedious. First I had to do a turn heel for an inch, then a modified version of short rows where I went down to 10 stitches (from 16) and then picked up a total of 18 stitches for the gusset. THEN, from 28 I must now decrease my way down to 16 again. Good grief! I could have turned two heels in the same amount of time.

Good to know that I have absolutely no interest in this woman’s way of doing heels, although I like everything else about this method so far (that could also be due in large part to the fact that I’m making a stockinette sock).

I also practiced my continental knitting today, and I’m definitely picking up speed! I’ve only really worked on the knit stitch so far, but I’m satisfied with my results.