I cast on the Mamluke socks last night and gleefully knit my little heart out.
When I knit fair isle I carry one colour in my left and one in my right. This is way slower than the way I knit flat stuff, which is as much as possible. Yeah, yeah, tell me again how great circulars are. I know they work for you. I however am the last great holdout for straight needles. Long straight needles. Love them.
As much as I love long straight needles (is it just me or is that starting to sound dirty?) I see the wisdom of knitting fair isles circularly, but for me, knitting circularly with one colour in each hand is slower. I know this to be an absolute fact.
Can somebody tell me then, how it is possible that it takes me longer to make each individual stitch, but have the rows go faster? I mean, if that was a plain grey sock, I could have knit around and around at lightning speed and have 2 inches at bedtime. Give me fair isle and I knit each stitch more slowly but each intriguing little row piles up on top of each other at an astonishing rate. That’s 5 inches of sock! Who can knit 5 inches of sock during one moderately interesting Denzel Washington movie? Not me man, it’s just the miracle of fair isle. It’s how Wendy does it. Knitting Voodoo.
This
Is what the girls did with their day yesterday. Note the mohawk. Be afraid.
This
Is what I did with part of my day yesterday while I tried not to think about the barbie. It’s the shetland from tuesday. This is the lightest batch, and I’m spinning sock weight 2ply for the cuffs of some socks. Looks pretty good eh? I realized today that to finish all of the projects that I have to finish before March ends I am going to need to warp the time-space continuum. That’s such a pain in the arse.
Yarn Harlot
Stephanie, As usual, I am LOL reading your blog. Those fair isle socks are gorgeous. I am convinced they are going more quickly, even though you knit fair isle more slowly, because it is so interesting to watch the pattern emerge. I am also pretty slow with stranded knitting — I hold both yarns in my left hand but am still a newbie at it. I am working on some stranded mittens in the hopes of sharpening my skills there. Guess what, I am also using dpns instead of two circs (I use two circs for socks, and dpns for mittens. Huh?)
And the Barbie just made my day.
HAHA post-apocolyptic, punk rock barbie. I love it. OH and also, I loves me some straights you are not the last hold out.
I’m in agreement w/ Rob. Anything w/ patterning goes faster, just because it’s more entertaining to watch it progress. The socks are beautiful!
As for Barbie…when I’m in yoga and the teacher is leading us through hip “openers” it always reminds me of the torturous way I used to move Barbie’s legs around. So, no matter how you look at manipulating Barbie, it always comes out perverse.<<gg
Doing perverse things to Barbie is a necessary rite of passage — my brother and I were quite inventive when it came to Barbie torture. 🙂
Add me to the list of dp lovers. I _loathe_ circular needles! Besides, it’s fun seeing people’s expressions when knitting a sock or a glove — it’s like holding a porcupine. (Am I a total dp freak for currently doing swatches on them instead of single-points?)
On two-color knitting — it’s strange returning to it after having been doing a lot of texture and pattern stitches. Still, the hand does seem to remember the process. (I do it all with the right hand; as I hold the yarn between thumb and finger when wrapping it, it doesn’t matter much if I add additional colors — I just have to make sure to pick the right color up.)
I _LOVE_ your socks. 🙂