nearly knee socks

I love knitting. And I love it when my kids love what I've knit them.

Laurel has eyed this sKnitches yarn in "Planetary" since I got it from eBay last spring. (Funnily enough, someone who has now become a "blog friend" was the seller! Such a small world!!) Laurel wears a uniform to school, and has nurtured an interest in knee socks to spice up her white-khaki-navy plainness.

I had attempted knee socks for her this summer, but they just weren't working. Using this non-pattern resulted in miscalculations on MY part and thusly produced a sock that was huge in the calf. I had to put it all down and walk away.

On Thursday, I decided it was time to get these things on the needles. Once I guesstimated at the cast-on stitch number, then worked out the initial increase numbers, I just kept sliding it on her leg to double-check the way things were turning out. The first one is done, and other than realizing I need to re-kitchener the toe with more stitches, I think it's pretty awesome!



You should have seen me knitting the foot of this sock, though. I was sweating bullets. I only have 300 yards of this yarn, and I really don't know how many yards it takes to make these socks. Using a scale, I measured two equal amounts and then wound those into center-pull balls. Towards the end of the ball -- and thankfully the end of the foot -- I kept glancing down to see how many colors were down there... As soon as I saw I had only one green length down there, I got a little jittery. I have 26 inches left of yarn.

Again with the quick knitting... This sport-weight yarn certainly is a help; I see now why people knit with sport-weight. She'd like for these socks to be done by Tuesday. At first I thought that would be impossible, but I'm sorta thinking it might be do-able. As long as I don't run out of yarn. But if I do, the gracious owner of sKnitches has already agreed to help me out! Hooray for helpful indie dyers!!