A sock-along
Why socks? To be honest, it just seemed so impossible. Earlier this year I had this idea that I should really try knitting socks. I didn’t even know what a magic loop was. During the lockdown, I sent my husband to the wool shop to buy me double pointed needles. He returned with 2 sets, because he didn’t know if I wanted the long or the shorter set. They remain unopened and now I am wondering if I should try and exchange them for sock yarn. As someone who has never knitted socks before, I also knew nothing about yarn for socks. I just assumed that any yarn that is a sock weight is suitable for knitting socks. I didn’t know that natural fibres with polyamide or nylon was the better choice and ‘breathe’ better. I really didn’t know that acrylic would probably be the worst yarn because it will make your feet sweat. I looked at the imported yarns and wondered how I could spend so much on a 100g ball just to learn, so when my local Wool Shop received the most beautiful yarn that was sock weight and totally affordable, I was overjoyed. With the most gorgeous colour selection, I chose several balls determined to make myself the most amazing socks, but alas it was 100% acrylic. As I delved deeper into sock making I realised that my acrylic yarn was better suited to making my daughter pretty tops and I needed to listen to the expert sock makers, if I was really going to do this.
I remember seeing a post on the Jaarn page about using circulars to knit sleeves of sweaters and I wondered how short the cable would have to be to knit kids sweater sleeves, so I asked Bren Grobler of Jaarn, what would be the best length cable for this. The shortest length that came with my interchangeable circular knitting needles was still too long for sleeves. Her response was 80cm because it was great with the magic loop method. When I read it I wondered if she had made a mistake and meant to say 8cm but still it just seemed odd….hang on…she said magic loop, what on earth was a magic loop? So I googled, and several YouTube videos later, I was amazed. To think all this time I kept dropping one of my double pointed needles, the one time I even had one get stuck in the basket and all the stitches slid off – this whole time the technique was there and I didn’t even know it. I had even sent my poor husband to the wool shop again to buy me 5mm double pointed needles to complete the sleeves of the sweater I was knitting.
I always thought if you knew a knit stitch and a purl stitch you knew how to knit, and really what more did you need to learn – oh how little I knew! So after all of this, I bought a 2.5mm circular needle (80cm cable of course) and some proper sock yarn and was ready to knit, but who wants to really do anything alone? So, I asked all of you to join me and from there everything kind of fell into place, and now here I am collaborating with Knotty Habit to host a sock-along. They must be a little crazy to want to collaborate with someone who has never knitted socks before on a sock project, but I guess we crafters are all a little bit of a crazy bunch. So after this very long version of a short story, best I get to work then and plan the best sock-along ever….ummmm where do I actually start? Let me go find out….
Until next time, Create, Craft and Inspire
Much love
Kogi
