Socks

So, I spent three hours yesterday looking through the free sock patterns on knittingpatterncentral.com. And printing out bunches of them.  (I am not distractable, no indeedy.)  Then I spent an hour or so going through my “orphan” balls of yarn.  I finally settled on four different sock patterns and four kinds of yarn, which I think will produce a most delightful set of socks.  I plan to use wooden needles and smuggle them through airport security if necessary; 5″ bamboo needles are just right for sticking in a pocket, and they don’t show up on metal detectors.  (They’re also about as dangerous as a ball-point pen.  Stop!  Hold it right there or I shall stab you with my pen!)  I will probably bring a book as backup, though, and perhaps a kumihimo disk or two.  (Not terrified of boredom.  Really.)
Some of these “orphan” yarns aren’t stretchy (the silk/cashmere and the 100% handspun silk for one) so I will have to add elastic on the inside, after knitting (thread a thin thread of elastic through the inside part of the ribbing.  No problem there.

This will, of course, force me to learn to knit from the top down.  I’m a little nervous about that since I’ve always knitted socks from the toe up using my own, highly individual method of knitting socks.  (I figured out how to knit them without instructions when I was stranded on a plane with nothing else to do and had forgotten the instructions at home!)  But I’m sure I’ll manage.

Now, I just have to knit swatches and see how much I’ll have to adapt the patterns.