While I’m not taking classes, I am subject to the nimiety of new students. The campus I work at has about 25,000 students that attend, so when fall starts, the somewhat quiet town gets quite an energetic onslaught. You might guess how I cope with this.

purl toes

Last night I cast on some new socks in a color sure to shock the system. I knitted them as I slowly walked to school, listening to knitting podcasts. I’m very careful and only have to look at the knitting for the toe increases. Socks are a perfect walking project since they are light in the hands, and if they are stockinette I don’t have to look. It takes me about 5-10 minutes longer to get to work if I’m walking and knitting at the same time, but I find it to be so much more peaceful. I think it’s worth it.

purl toes-2I’m using Koigu Painter’s Palette Premium Merino (say that 10 times really fast…) in color P140. I had two balls leftover from a baby pinwheel blanket a couple of years ago. Ok, ok. I kind of planned it so I might have a couple of balls leftover because I love this insanely vibrant color and it makes me really happy. I’m knitting them like these Koigu socks I made a few years ago, and I think I’m going to write up the pattern. It’s basically a plain toe-up sock with purled toes, easy to execute with only a tiny bit of extra thinking.

I’m also using my first pair of Addi Turbo Sock Rockets in the 2.25mm size. That’s between a US 0 and US 1. I LOVE them. They’re smooth, have a perfect point, and feel amazing in my hands. I thought they would feel a lot bigger than my usual 0’s, but they don’t, and they seem better suited to slightly thicker fingering weight yarns I love like Koigu and Colinette Jitterbug.

I was carting my Beatnik sleeves to work, but they were pretty large since I’m knitting from two balls, and I came across something in the pattern that I gave me pause. I mentioned before that I’m knitting the XS sleeves, since there are a lot of finished examples with excess fabric at the top. This seemed like it would only subtract some of the width, and I could do an extra two rows which would make up the difference in length. I added these rows, and according to the pattern I should only have 6 more to finish the cap. This seems nowhere near what would be needed to get close to the armscye length. Usually the bell shape of the sleeve is a little smaller and shorter than the armscye, but I’m about an inch or more off. I’m considering ripping and reworking some of the shaping to have 2 rows between decrease rows, rather than just 1. I will probably execute this tonight and hopefully cast on for the front!

Happy Tuesday!

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