Knitting

After all that preparation, I am now knitting the first sock. I'm working on one sock at a time because it's rather experimental and if I make a mistake or change my mind about colours, I don't want to have to undo two lots. I'm writing down what I do so I can knit the second sock without referring to the first sock. Neatly, it turns out the my version in thinner yarn requires the Anelmaiset leg chart to be knitted twice. I'm going to work a mirror image, starting and ending with hearts. I have 80 stitches at the top and will have 48 at the ankle, both of which are divisible by the 8 stitches of the heart motif. Neat, again.

I was a bit disconcerted to read on the pattern that I must look at youtube to find the pattern for the flowers in a row stitch. I think a pattern should be complete, especially one you pay for. Anyway, I did find it, and found a written version. I knitted a sample, but I decided not to use it because it pulled the knitting in and wasn't very elastic. Instead, I'm using boucle wool that I spun for my poncho and didn't use. The specifications for the competition mention 'texture', and I think the boucle will fit that requirement.

If you peer at the picture, you can see that my arrangement of stitches on the needles is very uneven. That's because leaving them as they are helps me keep track of the decreasing. Once I have the final number of stitches, I'll rearrange the stitches more evenly.