#operationsockdrawer

It is my opinion that there are two important milestones between being a knitter and a capital K Knitter. These milestones are socks and adult sized sweaters. By this measurement, I am not a Knitter....but I'm getting there!

Now, this isn't the first time I've talked about wanting to knit socks, having never done it before. And I've had people say, uh, don't you SELL socks?

And to that I say....technicality. You see, while sock shaped, these are slippers. They are knitted with super, super chunky yarn on size 13 needles. If pressed, I can finish a pair in 2 days. To be a Knitter, I'm talking about SOCKS. The kind that fit inside of shoes. The kind knitted on size 1 needles. The kind that, in my head, take forever, which is why they've been sort of elusive for me.

I decided to ease my way down from the super chunky to the fine, fingering weight of actual socks with a sport weight yarn, de-stashed to me from one of the lovely knitters in my group (thanks again!). I cast them on March 1, and bound off May 1! 2 months....a little on the long side, but they weren't my only project going on either. I used the basic gusset pattern from Wendy Johnson's book, Socks From the Toe Up. It went very smoothly! I used Judy's magic cast on for the toes, which was super easy, and the russian bind off, which I'm finding to be quite nice and not at all too tight at the top. I did 2x2 ribbing all the way up the leg, because I was a bit worried that the plain stockinette would be too loose.

 

It's a start....but I definitely have a long way to go before I can hope to have anything like these sock drawers...

 

These are the drawers (S - plural!!) of the lovely Susan B Anderson, who fired up a bit of a frenzy in the knitting world last spring when she posted these drawers full of years worth of handknit wool socks. I believe it was Jasmin from the Knitmores who coined the hashtag on instagram, and people have been posting their drawers and socks and works in progress ever since. (As an aside, I'm totally enamored with Susan. She's a fellow Wisconsinite, and I sort of want her to be my best friend or mentor or something. I've been watching her video podcast and I think she's just adorable. It feels a bit strange to describe someone as adorable when I'm 10 years older than her kids, but she is! She just seems so sweet and genuine, and a talented and prolific knitter and designer as well.)

My last step (I'm seriously trying to avoid sock or foot puns!) before officially calling myself a sock Knitter is this little pair of kids tube socks. Size 1 needles, but decidedly less knitting than adult socks. Almost there!

I stepped up kicked up (this is really hard) increased my skills by working them two at a time from both ends of the yarn. My goal for my socks is to make them as tallllll as possible, so I figure that's a good way to do it with the least amount of guess work. Magic looping one circular seemed fiddly, so I opted for 2 circulars, which I'm not sure is LESS fiddly, but it's what I decided to do after I found dpns were giving me laddering at the needle joins on a different project. I'm doing kid socks as tube socks without heels so that it will be a good long time before they are outgrown. This is both smart, and not my idea. I heard Gigi, also from the Knitmores, doing this for her granddaughter, and I thought it seemed like a fabulous idea. Now I didn't use up the whole ball for these as they are already pretty long, but it's good practice anyway. I started these on April 8, and finished them last night! So now my needles will be free to cast on a REAL pair of Socks for myself! ....where to begin?

(ps spot the kitty nose)

#operationsockdrawer here I come

And as for the adult sized sweater....I'll get there someday. I've got 2 baby sweaters under my belt (ugh, that's sort of a bad pun too! sorry!), and enough yarn for 2 sweaters for me, just sitting patiently, waiting for me to gather up both the ambition to cast on and just the right patterns to go with them.