Knitty post *warning* may cause boredom in non knitters

There hasn't been much blogging going on round here lately, but there has been much knitting.

I have a sock knitting mentor, who bless her, is trying to get me to knit a pair of socks on something other than a pair of straight needles. I have no trouble knitting with straights, I can knit a pair of socks in a couple of days, but I hate the sewing up and i loathe the seams along either side of the foot. I have used 4 Double pointed needles before to knit in the round. I've made dolly bags, little tweety birds, babooshka dolls...I don't like them but I can (after a lot of swearing) produce something using them. So WHY cant I put the two skills together and make socks? Oh I don't know! Call it a mental block, laziness, fear?

So, my mentor sent me a few links to videos and a pattern and I grasped my needles, yarn, and courage with both hands and set off. Usually I cast on, distribute my stitches, try to join them in the round, cuss a bit, twist the needles, drop the stitches, start again, swear a bit more, groan, and then either ask mum to start it off for me (She has infinite patience, something I haven't inherited) or i throw it away and start again on straight needles.

This time tho, with A's help and with detailed instructions, I persevered. I learned that if you knit the first stitch on your first round, then that joins the work nicely. so that was a good start. OK so first hurdle overcome, I still didn't think much of the amount of needles (4 with the threat of adding another one) but I started on the rib.K2 P2 rib, i managed the first round and knew it would get easier so i carried on, and really without much pain I found I had a few inches of rib!

Next comes the easy part, knitting the leg. Lots of plain knitting rows to get into the swing of it.

I am one of those strange people who like turning a heel, so I happily followed the instructions, 32 rows of S1, K1 heel, it looked a bit long but I figured it would all work out in the end.

I shaped the heel and dreaded picking up the stitches along the sides. I HATE picking up stitches, I LOATHE it with a passion, but it was only 18 along each side, not so hard. I don't think I did it very well as I had a bit of a ridge on the inside of the sock and a hole..... but hey, i thought I could live with that.

Shaped the ankle and kept thinking 'this is it - I've almost got a sock!" I tried it on and that's where the suspicions that had been niggling away at me, really arose. Its too big!!!! i realised that if i carried on it would have fit the worlds biggest man! My respectable size 6-7 tootsies were lost in the giant Christmas stocking of a sock :( So after much deliberation, I took the difficult decision to put my sock out of its misery, and I frogged it.

The amount of things that I've learned this last few weeks tho, I learned the kitchener stitch to graft the toes of socks, I learned how to do the thumb or long tail cast on for a nice stretchy cast on, i learned a stretchy bind off (K2, Bind off 1, pass this stitch onto the left hand needle and repeat), I've learned that DPN's aren't SO scary, and i now know the theory of a magic loop and 2 circular needle methods. I've also learned that I love this yarn, Sirdar Crofter DK in 'Thistle'. I love the colours and variations.