Frakking Socks - Episode I

On Thursday evening at 5pm on the dot I eagerly cast on the first of my Viper Pilots socks. I also tried out a Google+ hangout for the first time and could see and chat to knitters in the US also casting on their first socks, which was pretty nifty. Unfortunately we don't have a proper microphone so I have to talk through our skype phone which makes knitting at the same time tricky, so I listened to the other knitters chatting away about cast on techniques and the like. I was storming along, on about my third round of ribbing when I realised I'd cast on 10 stitches less than the pattern. While this wasn't a major disaster, as I usually make my socks narrower as I have thin feet and ankles, it did make me take stock of my occasional cockiness and pay more attention. Much like being back at school.

I worked out how to modify the pattern, adding a couple of increases before starting the leg and removing one stitch from the ribbing sections of the pattern making my socks a nice neat 70 stitches rather than the 78 on the pattern.

The fit was going well, however the other thing I had been cocksure about was the difficulty of the pattern. I really enjoy knitting cables but I hadn't looked at how fiddly the cables were on this pattern. Rib 3, then purl one, with all knit stitches being through the back loop. Yes, I can do this but not at speed. This was going to be a lesson in patience and perseverance....

I knit until bedtime and I think completed the first of the "Viper Vs"

Next time on Frakking socks, trains, swearing and a notmycat which is not my notmycat.

Comments

We have a winner...

Check out my pea seedling, how intact and un-nibbled it is. My mysterious object, as correctly guessed by Madmurdock and Montyknits, is a gastropod guard. It seems to be working. I'd heard that slugs and snails don't like slithering over hair. I tried using hair clippings a few years ago as a barrier. It worked for a few days, til I found chewed, leafless stems and on further inspection a guilty slug covered in ginger hair. Hopefully the fleecy barrier will stay in place and mean I get a good late crop of peas. Congratulations to the winners and thank you to everyone who took part.

Lashing and lashings...

As well as talk of Clementine Cake on twitter there has been talk of brewing Ginger Beer. Ginger beer is my drink of choice and I'm always in search of a good one. I find many commercial ones too sweet. Once on holiday in Brasil I had a ginger beer made with freshly squeezed ginger which is the gold standard at the moment and a tough act to live up to. @eskimimi (who has a lovely blog ) linked to this River Cottage recipe last week . I had to hunt around for brewers yeast as the brewer's yeast you can buy in chemists and health food shops is deactivated so won't work for brewing, despite the name. (trade descriptions act anyone?). I ended up buying my yeast online after consulting my brewing guru Bioniclaura . As well as knitting Laura brews her own beer, which I got sample when I stayed with her and her lovely dog and husband in Dublin when I went over at the end of October. More on that later. I couldn't wait to get started but had to wait til we returned from Hasti

Ceilings

Over Easter we went to Istanbul. It's one of those cities that's been lurking in the corners of my mind, from tales of Roman Constantinople, to bordering Europe and Asia with its dreaming mosque minarets. So I booked a bargain of a city break two days before we left, chucked some clothes in a bag, picked up a guidebook and off we went. There are more blog posts and photos on the way, as we had an excellent time there, but as you can see I was quite taken with ceilings and spent most of our four days there looking up.

Ginger Knits UK

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