In Which the Pirate Plans Socks.

I don’t know why this is, but it’s true: lots of new and new-ish spinners have never knit with their handspun yarn. Oh, maybe a gauge swatch, a little test here and there, but never an actual finished object.

Janis and I learned to spin at exactly the same time, at the 2007 Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Two years have gone by and neither of us has ever knit with our own handspun! How crazy is that? So we’ve committed to each starting a sock with our own yarn. I’ll be using the BFL, and knitting toe-up and plain stockinette. I haven’t yet swatched, but the yarn is fine enough that I might have to go down to size 0 needles, and I want to get as much sock as possible from this yarn.

Just to hedge my vacation-knitting bets, I’m also going to bring a ball of Trekking XXL with me. I have been wanting to knit a pair of “Brother’s Socks” for myself in my own size, so that I can write up the pattern in two sizes and get it published already. I just need to work out the heel and toe numbers; the rest is almost exactly the same. Conveniently, I already know what gauge I get with Trekking; a horrifyingly small 45 stitches to four inches. I’ll be using the yarn that didn’t work out for my previous attempt at ribbed socks. Now I know I need many, many more stitches than what I cast on last time!

I briefly considered bringing the green yarn and chart for the “Verdant” socks that I began in the class I took with Cookie A. last year, but I think those may take too much concentration to be vacation socks. I still need to come up with a ribbing that flows into the pattern, and the charted lace takes all of my brain-power… which is in short supply in the heat of the day.

Anyway, I’ll only be gone for nine days! As much as I think I’m going to sit around knitting, I’m not very quick at it. Not to mention all the spinning I’ll have with me. I think I’ll be able to keep myself occupied with two socks and a half-ton of fiber.