Well, this was a week where a lot of things I planned didn’t happen.  I was on a work trip to Portland OR this week, so I searched online for yarn shops ahead of time and planned to visit them all.  What actually wound up happening was on the partial day I had to roam around the city I got sucked in by the gravitational pull of Powell’s books, and did not have the time, dollars or energy to do any more shopping by the time that was done.  For anyone not aware of Powell’s books – it is a ginormous used and new bookstore.  If you are a book lover at all, it is amazing.  They do have a really good knitting book section, but I already had all the things they had that I wanted at all.  I did find quite a few books on other topics, though.  Then I had a VooDoo doughnut, and staggered back to the train that took me back to the shuttle that took me back to my hotel, which was out by the airport and too far away from the city center to make evening expeditions practical.

ANYway.  Knitting.  I did manage to finish the second of my experimental pairs of socks this week.  So here they are!

I used the same techniques as the first experiment – 2 at a time, toe up.  I used the figure 8 cast on and afterthought heels.  I did my same trick as the first pair with the heels of just knitting an inch or so beyond the waste yarn, then going back and knitting in the heel with the other end of each skein so I wouldn’t have to worry about playing yarn chicken at the end of the process. The work went quickly because of the worsted weight yarn and the bigger needles, but still managed to take awhile because they are knee socks.  In general, I prefer wearing knee socks to shorter ones, but I can see that with my patience level, I am probably not going to be knitting too many pairs of knee socks out of sock weight yarn.

Lessons successfully learned from last time:

•  Negative ease is your friend in socks.  Really and truly.
• Start the heel sooner than you think you should.  Line up with the ankle bone relatively to the foot stitches pulled tight on your foot, not just gently eased on there.

Lessons I now know for next time:

• If I do every knit knee socks again, do some stitch reductions after the biggest point on the calf.

So that’s it for that experiment.  The sanquhar gloves need to be finished before I start another pair, so more on them for the next post!

(I know I keep saying that, but one of these times it will actually happen. )