Must...Keep...Knitting...

So as I may or may not have mentioned previously I have been trying to knit a mile a month - I did get rather carried away with restocking my yarn mountain last year. Probably why the blog is looking sad and neglected. Not every month has been successful, but my average is slightly over the target.

I have also got quite in to designing more patterns for myself and am really enjoying letting my more artistic side out. Although I still prefer ordered, geometric artistic rather than chaotic, random, abstract artistic, when it comes to making a knitting pattern. I may no longer design computer programs but I still need to apply rules and symmetry - it is in my nature. Colours, however, can range free within the limitations of the yarns I possess...

And it does have a purpose - to use up those pesky oddments, partial and single skeins. Yeah, I could keep knitting scarfs but there really is a limit. Unlike socks and sweaters...

2000 Triangles Jacket

Patchwork Fields Sweater

Interlock Socks

These are my current project. I have just reached the heel on sock number 2.

The thing with socks is that they are knitted in the round. To use colours you need to either knit it all the way round or carry it along the inside until it is needed again. And that can be a pain in the a**e. Especially when switching from one needle to the next - too loose and you get ladders, too tight and you may not be able to get the sock on over your heel.

This pattern is actually very simple. On the rounds with two colours I am only ever knitting two consecutive stitches in the same colour so I don't have long floats and no need to catch the alternating colour down - switching needles is not a problem. And each round slips the colours across by one stitch so no need to twist the yarns. And I am carrying the pattern all the way around the foot and leg.


But for patterns where colour work is only wanted on the front/top of foot... I have been contemplating this for quite a while now... And think I may have come up with something that could be quite interesting and fun... well, if you are a sock knitter.