Back to knitting
The problem with strep throat is that while I had a whole week of enforced leisure in which I could knit, I didn’t feel up to it at all. Not even a little bit. I have a pair of wristwarmers (commissioned — the first time anyone’s paid me to knit, by the way) that are 10 minutes away from completion, and were 10 minutes away from completion all last week. But I just didn’t have the energy. I did a little posting, graded a couple of assignments, and that was about all I could manage all week. (Yes, Christmas is coming and there is a lot to do. Please don’t remind me.)
Today I finally felt up to driving the car, and decided I was going to go out and get some yarn for another pair of wristwarmers (these are also a commission. Shocking!). So I drove to Pacific Fabric’s outlet store, which is technically the nearest yarn store to my house. (If they are an outlet store, how come their yarn is full-price? This is what I would like to know.) They did have the yarn and the color that the customer requested, so I bought it. I will have remnants of 4 different colors of Cascade Pastaza soon; I see something striped in my future.
Anyway, while I was there, I just had this sudden urge to knit socks.
They had some Regia jacquard sock yarn, but the only two colorways they had more than one skein of were one that was exactly the same as the Lion Brand Magic Stripes I knitted my first pair of socks from (so in other words, Done that!), and one called Tundra, which is far from my favorite color combination. The blues are OK, but the tan and brown? Not quite me. But it’s wool. And feels nice. And I just have to knit some socks; it’s like a mental cleaning break after the strep.
So I bought the Regia yarn, and I’m knitting a sock out of it with the Addi Turbo needles I bought a couple of months ago specifically for sock knitting. They are 40″ circs and I am trying the Magic Loop technique. OK. First thing: Addi Turbos are nice. For a tight knitter like me, they are just wonderful. So smooth and nice. I will have to buy some larger sizes and try those out to see if I like them better than my Denises. Second: the Regia yarn feels a lot nicer than the lion brand Magic Stripes, even though it looks nearly the same.
Besides the attempt at Magic Loop, I’m also trying these socks toe-up. I’m using this pattern. So I had to learn to do a figure-8 cast on, which is amusing since I can actually do a figure 8, too. 🙂 This page has the best figure-8 cast-on instructions I could find (all the others used double-pointed needles, not Magic Loop), and the illustrations at the bottom of this post were extremely helpful with the increase stitches.
So I have here, on my lap, the toe of a new sock. When I should be knitting other stuff. But, what the hey. Photos to come later. (I also have another pattern to post, but I need to edit the photos down first. The pattern pdf is huge at the moment.)
I am sold on the magicloop process. I thought two circulars was great, but I’m ready to trade in all my circulars for longer ones.
Yup, I like the Magic Loop, It is working pretty well so far. I do get a little annoyed at the leftover cable popping up into my way sometimes, but it’s less annoying than dpns.
I had never heard of this technique but I will have to try it. It looks a lot easier than wrestling stitches on and off the needle part of the circulars, especially when you’re near the end and have relatively fewer stitches left….
I think I heard somewhere that the Magic Loop technique is a relatively recent invention that someone right here in the Seattle area invented. I don’t remember where I read that, though, so I could be wrong. You do have to move stitches on and off the needle part of the circulars, though — that is the slowest bit. K 28, slide the next group of stitches onto the needle and the previous batch onto the cable, k 28, do the sliding thing again… but you don’t have to juggle dpns or worry about point protectors.
I guess it’s about the same as a two circular needle method, just using one loooooong circ instead of two of them.
Hey, anything that will save me from going @#$%^@ while stitches drop off either end of DPNs is a great invention!!