I had a job interview on Thursday, and I must have been a little tense because I snapped one of my brand new tulip 2.25 mm bamboo needles. I couldn't believe it when I felt the snap, I was in denial. They had become a little bendy and warped, but I never thought I would actually snap one. I must have been exerting just a little too much pre-interview pressure.

Still, I got the job!

Start Monday. Also, my trip into the city afforded me the chance to go to Tapestry Craft again, only to find that they have 30% off all WOOL! I was completely unprepared. Now I know why people carry stash wishlists around in their purses. Oh, if only I'd known how many balls of cashmiro I wanted and in what colour. The sale is on for the next three weeks, so I will have a chance to go back and add to the Argyle sock wool I bought for about $4.50 a ball.

I'm still trying to knit with the needle I broke (it only snapped about a quarter into the needle), that's truly obsessed knitting for you. Not quite as bad as Elizabeth Zimmerman sharpening the blunt ends of her needles against rocks on an island once when she wanted dpn's, but still! If only I knit normal socks that you only need four needles for, but not, I have to be fancy and use five. For the symmetry. Still, I'm one and a half birthday socks down... and should finish the second one this weekend. Than I can put those beautiful needles away and practice de-stressing.

I will post photos too, they are beautiful. A turkish motif called 'chimney grate' from an old Anatolian knitting book, but the grey and blue St Ives I am using makes the socks look positively Elizabethan,

I have always been a toe-up sock girl. But in the lat two days I have knit my first top-down sock. It's far from perfect, but I am fascinated by the process and excited at the possibilities.



Things I learned while making this sock :

I don't really like Heirloom wool, not the normal stuff anyway. It's too stiff and wiry and splits really easily and looks incredibly messy when I do split the stitches. I'll have to wait and see what I think of the argyle sock wool they make.

I have been doing ssk wrong for a whole year! I was slipping stitches as if I was just moving them around on the needles, instead of slipping them as if I was going to make a stitch, and then using the virgin needle (if you know what I mean, the one that didn't have newly knit stitches from that round on it) through the back of those two stitches to make a stitch. Idiocy! Now when I do a ssk it looks beautiful and neat, just like its opposite slanting counterpart, the knit 2 together. They just looked messy before, this didn't really matter when I was making Turkish socks, but it really showed on the decreases on the toe of this sock and I started to question mysef, and problem solved until I fixed the problem and came to true enlightenment.

I get stiff fingers and a painful little finger when I do too much ribbing.

Things I don't like about this sock that I would like to improve upon :

I would like the heel flap to be longer. 2 1/4 inches was just shy of what I needed to make 16 stitches up the sides, plus it would just look nicer!

I would like the foot to be just a little longer, as it is the heel keeps sliding down my foot just a little.

I would like to knit a few rounds of stocking stich before starting the heel flap, the ribbing just seems to go down too low.

Alternatively, I would like to cable rib instead, and then continue those cables all the way down the front of the sock to the toe.

Anyway, it was a good learning process, and I think I could become quite used to knitting plain old top down socks. I am enjoying just working in one colour for a change, and they knit up very quickly.

Also, I am very excited to report that my Husband (who has spurned my offers to knit for him, apart from a luxurious black, chunky man-ly-ribbed soft-as-soft scarf and a disasterous attempt at a skullcap, which I have not offered to improve upon) has said he would wear socks like these if I knitted them for him. Hooray. There's nothing like knitting for people you love, and I knew he's never wear Turkish socks if I made him some. But these in black? Definitely.

Hooray for new knitty! I am particularly taken with Blaze, a clingy aran style off the shoulder top knit in the round. Yum.

When my parents were visiting the other week I went into Tapestry Craft in the city and found the needles I never wish to be parted from. Bamboo 2.25mm dpns, courtesy of Tulip. Japanese, flexible, smooth between my fingers. Did I mention the flex? I love them. Needless to say I have been knitting more socks, and now have smaller needles with which to do my ribbing.

Hs anyone knit with Heirloom Argyle? I think it miht become my sock wool of choice.

I am busy busy at the moment working in a Special Library of the TESOL persuasion, so most of my knitting has been on the train and I have had little time for online yarn yearning.