I signed up for Yarnmonkey's Sock Wars. 700+ of us have signed up for it. I bought my yarn on Friday (the 15th), even though it's designed to be a stash-busting exercise and "everybody" has surplus DK weight.
Everybody but me, that is. I scored this yarn at 25% off, and it's gaudy enough to make a neat pair of socks. I have no idea what the label says. I think it's Swedish???
Haven't swatched it yet. Am thinking that I'll need to gear down to 4's or 3's to make gauge.
Specified gauge: 22 sts & 30 rows = 4" on size 5's.
9/19/06:Gauge on Clover 4's: 22 sts = 4.5"; 30 rows = 4.5". Well, at least I'm consistent. Potage a la grenouille ~ it's what's for breakfast!
9/20/06: Gauge on Quicksilver 3's: 22 sts = 4.5"; 30 rows = 4.5". As in no discernible difference. As in I am very confused.
Knitted in the round on Crystal Palace 2's: OK, this is on 36 sts, and I'm getting about 23 sts per 4" but the vertical gauge is correct. So I carefully slipped this tubular swatch onto my 11-1/2" long circular 3 and after only 2 rounds I can see that it will be too airy.
I guess my choices are to knit it on the 2's while listening to reggae, or on 3's while listening to salsa [to slow down my hands, or speed them up, respectively].
9/21/06: Biding my time, waiting for the pattern and my target.
9/22/06: 5:17am on my computer and still no pattern, no target. What is going on, over there on the Emerald Isle?
I learned/realized this morning that I had not set up a profile on the official Sock Wars website. Wrestled with that for awhile. Also realized while checking my primary email account that the tub was still running. Thank goodness for the overflow drain!
9/24/06: What is up with Blogger? I can't get the spacing right on this, and I just obliterated all my notes from yesterday. Harrumph! So I guess I'll give you the Reader's Digest Condensed version. I cast on the first sock right after I got home from work on Friday. I took it with me to LittleBit's play cycle at the high school (she was on the costume and makeup crew this go-round) and knitted through the entire production. I only had to repair three splitty stitches once I got home. When I went to bed on Friday night, the first sock was ready for its heel flap.
I woke up yesterday morning a little before 6:00 and cast on the second sock. When I went to my church's annual workshops and dinner before the General Relief Society Conference broadcast, I had completed both heels and was finishing the gussets on the second sock. When I went to bed last night, both feet were halfway done.
I finished grafting the first toe before leaving for church. I was afraid, three-fourths of the way along the foot, that I would run out of yarn and would have to make a frantic dash to the yarn store tomorrow on my lunch hour.
When we got home from church this afternoon, I got busy with the second sock. By 6:30pm, I was nearly ready for the toe decreases.
It is now 11:05pm, and the second sock is done, including the EZ sewn cast-off. I have threaded the needle to do the EZ cast-off on it, when I wake in the morning. I'll take it to work and have my friend take photos. It will go out in the mail on my way home from work.
I have my target's snailmail addy, and she's mailing her socks and her target's data to me tomorrow as well. I wonder how many socks I'll complete before my assassin's socks reach me from Down Under?
What I learned on this project: (1) first top-down socks; (2) first heel flaps and gussets; (3) the Rib of Doom is fun to knit; (4) socks in DK on size 2's go really fast, compared to socks in fingering weight on 0's; (5) EZ's sewn cast-off.
[PICTURE OF COMPLETED SOCKS WILL GO *HERE*, IF I CAN EVER GET THEM UPLOADED. I HAVE THREE SETS.]
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