Simple Socks - a Little Intention

As part of my reflection on the start of 2013, I set myself four little intentions; four specific tasks I had been meaning to try for some time, four mini-voyages of discovery. Like planning most voyages into the little known, I set off  by browsing my bookshelves closely followed by a trip to the library.

But of course it inevitably included a trawl of the internet to find helpful sites.And of course there were many, so setting up an Intentions board on Pinterest to store  likely links seemed a good idea. I am very pleased to say that I can now tick off one of my intentions, "Knit a pair of socks with properly turned heels and grafted toes"  thanks to Ravelry.

I found a pattern there that I thought would suit my purpose very well. OK so the toes aren't grafted but I have done grafting before so that didn't really need to be part of the learning curve of this particular project. Opening the pdf for the pattern and finding it was entitled "Wise Hilda's Basic Ribbed Sock" felt like an omen. It was another wise Hilda who taught me how to knit. ( Thanks Mum!)

It's a while since I have used a set of  double pointed needles and such fine yarn and I admit there were a lot of dropped stitches to begin with and yes, some bad language before the task became the pleasure I usually find knitting to be.

Almost immediately I began to worry that the cuff was rather small and the casting on rather tight. I use the 2 needle method to cast on but had read in one of the library books that knitting through the back of each stitch as you cast on gives the edge a little more elasticity so that is what I had done. Even so I had my doubts but I decided to carry on and treat it as the learning exercise it was, after all I hadn't even got to the tricky bit,  turning the heel. I asked a knitting friend if she had ever made socks and how she had coped with heels and she said that she had and that she had simply followed the instructions in the pattern and it all worked out fine.

Imagine how pleased I was to find that is just what happened with this pattern. It is different from any other shaping I have done before but taken one step at a time, following the instructions as given, it is not tricky at all really. Probably a life lesson in there somewhere. Something like 'take things one step at a time and don't over-think them in advance.'

The rest went really well, probably boosted by my faith in the instructions. The beauty of learning these techniques in socks is that you get to practise them again straight away. I found that the cast on edge was just fine and the socks stay up and are very comfortable. For the future I will check out other methods of casting on. All in all, I am very pleased to have made this the first completed of my intentions - hasn't it been ideal weather for woolly socks?

As for the other little intentions - well there is some progress on two of those.
(The make a book challenge is the least advanced of the challenges as yet. There have been some very useful sites on Pinterest so I have those 'pinned' for future reference.)
 
I have a second sour dough starter (hopefully) brewing away in the laundry. I wasn't convinced that my first attempt was very active so I threw it out and started again, this time keeping it somewhere warmer and it looks rather more promising. More of that later.

The photo challenge is coming along albeit a little fitfully. Inspired by Sue at The Quince Tree I embarked on the Challenge set by  Fat Mum Slim.  It is obvious I will need to build up to this challenge - after all if I had said I was going to run a marathon you would expect me to do some fun runs and half marathons first, wouldn't you?   I got through the first half  of Fat Mum Slim's list before the rest of life intervened. I will get back to it and may be even try to fill the gaps before the end of the month. I know this is not quite in keeping with the spirit of the challenge so I won't tick it off my list just yet. It has been good to make (almost) daily use of the camera and extend the use of equipment and techniques. 
From the topic set for the 9th, here is my 'faceless self-portrait.'

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 Well I can't sit here blogging all day - I have a picture of working to achieve and a sourdough starter to feed.