The sock yarn spinning is still ongoing, but in the meantime I started a sock with some of the yarn I bought. I’m doing a toe-up with a figure-eight cast-on, which went ok. Of the toe methods from Knitty, it’s the one that made the most sense for me. YMMV, I’m sure, as lots of people hate/are scared of the figure-eight cast-on. I have that feeling about waste yarn crochet chains. I liked the fabric knit on 2mm dpns, but I went up a size to get closer to the recommended gauge. I think it looks nice around 32/10cm (8/inch.) But the manufacturer recommends 28/10cm and at least 2.5mm needles, which is no way going to work for me. Knitting is like that. Hey, it’s not like I’m really following a pattern anyway. I’m using Wendy’s toe-up sock pattern as a guide. I’m only accidentally using the same number of stitches. Based on measuring my ankle I expected 72 stitches but started the foot after 68 because it appeared to be getting alarmingly large. I finally ripped back and went with 64 because I didn’t like how it looked.
The yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit Fun&Stripes, the most normal sock yarn I could find in sufficient amounts at Carolina Homespun. (I also got two skeins of another color for some taller socks.) It’s mostly regular color changes with little blobs here and there. I looked around at sock yarns for a couple weeks, but wasn’t happy with what I saw. The fake Fair Isle stuff gets weird if you start changing the number of stitches and I really didn’t want all that anyway. I also wasn’t happy with the odd muted colors I saw several places. What is so wrong with basic solids? What I got was shades of blue, which I can live with. The other one is blue and green.
100g is supposed to do a pair of socks, so I’m doing toe-up to get as much as possible out of it. I intended to knit from both ends of the skein at the same time, but I’m beginning to wonder if it will work. I have to knit a little more to see if the stripe pattern comes out symmetrical. If it’s not, then I’ll just keep going until I use half the skein. This wouldn’t be an issue if I could find some plain normal yarn, but apparently I’m a stodgy old crank who isn’t keeping up with the latest styles. Feh.
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