I have wanted to learn to knit socks for a long time. Kelly at Royal Bee Yarn Company offered one over the weekend and I signed up. I had to ask myself why as I struggled during the first class and doing my self assigned homework. I write about knitting about once a year. The last time was when I tried to knit a sweater, gave up and started another scarf. I do want to be a good knitter, but I don’t want to devote as much time to knitting as I do to quiltmaking. I want knitting to be a side activity I can pick up when I travel or when I am out of quiltmaking handwork.
The class was good and I like the style of socks we learned to make. I learned a couple of new skills such as decreasing in two ways.
It didn’t start out well for me, though. As part of the class, we received a set of double pointed needles (DPNs) and a ball of yarn. The DPNs available were wood or bamboo. I have some wood (or bamboo??) needles. Usually, however, I use wood needles with steel tips**. I like steel tips because the stitches slide on an off easily. I like the wood part because that means the shaft is not as rigid as on full steel needles.
I really struggled with the bamboo. In addition to not being able to get the stitches off the needles easily, my project came off the needles in transit from class to home. I couldn’t fix it, though I tried, so I knitted the whole cuff over again before class the next day. It looked a little better, but not much. I felt super discouraged and almost didn’t attend the second class.
That is not me, so I went and confessed all to the teacher. She offered to trade me her steel needles for my bamboo needles. I took her up on it. I was planning to buy a set of my preferred needles, but the shop doesn’t carry them. She moved my project onto the new needles and in the process discovered that one of my needles had a sliver in it. While not the complete problem, it was definitely part of the problem.
I like the style of the sock that Linda teaches, because there are no ridges on the heel. I feel now, like I can knit socks. The steps are not firmly lodged in my head, but could get there after a few more socks.
Things went a lot better with the steel needles and I ended up with part of a sock and the heel completed. I need to knit the foot part and then contact Linda, the teacher, to get help with the toe. I plan to knit the other cuff as well so she can help me with the other heel at the same time.
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