The first ever Yellowbird Sock Knit-Along is officially under way!
There were five of us all together, plus one sniffly six year old with a Nintendo and apple slices for entertainment. It was a fantastic morning, filled with knitting and laughter, and my son was sweetly patient even as time slipped away from us.
Our merry party was lead by Barbara, who is not only a highly experienced knitter but also an excellent baker of shortbread! We nibbled our way through a covering of the bases as Barbara explained what we were getting ourselves in to.
It was at this point that Judy, owner of River City and novice knitter, who was "only going to watch for a little while", found herself pulling up a chair.
For those of you who do not yet know, the purpose of this knit-along is to explore Cat Bordhi's new method of knitting socks as spelled out in Personal Footprints for Insouciant Sock Knitters. To start off, this new method involves having someone trace your foot on a piece of cardboard.
Now, that's an ice breaker!
Cut out your foot, and you've got yourself a handy-dandy pattern which you will use for making notes as you knit your Discovery Sock. You will be marking things such as where to increase, where to decrease, and where to put your leg.
Because you need to know where to put your leg.
You see, for this method you knit from toe to heel as if the leg isn't even there, resulting in one long closed tube. During the process, you mark where your leg will be in the sock and that is where you cut. The yarn. Just cut right smack dab in the middle of the row. And rip out those stitches.
But we're not there yet! No, we've only just cast on and started our increases. We spent some time on this, learning the Turkish cast-on since none of us but Barbara were familiar with it. I have to say that I did start over once, only to find I had done it correctly after finishing it the second time! I do believe that I will spend some time at Open Knit tomorrow starting over once more, though, just to make sure I got it down. I tend to knit tightly when trying something new, and I would hate for my guage to be thrown off because of that!
According to Barbara, the toes are a bit "fiddley" (please read in a Brittish accent), but they are truly the toughest part of the whole sock. And, like anything else in knitting, mistakes happen and should be relished! (Insert zen-like definition of wabi-sabi, akin to the happy accident but much more poetic.)
The morning flew by in such a pleasant manner (though the poor nice man from the newspaper who was forced to speak with Judy in the middle of this fiesty group may disagree), and ended with a happy little boy with Superman ice cream. Patience in a six year old boy is, after all, a quality that demands a reward!
