Rated PG

I got nothin' to show you, so when I saw this over at Norma's, I had it rate my blog. You'll never guess.

It's because I said "crap" twice and "sexy" once (in the link to the Sexy Knitter's Club). Ooops, there goes the ol' rating. Good thing I didn't post everything that I saw at the Pride Parade, I guess. And I'm not talking about the LGBT folks, I'm talking about the float sponsored by the strip joint.

The Embossed Leaves socks are almost done, but they are picture-less because they are a surprise. I think I'm safe to blab about them but not show them. I don't think Lorri reads knitting blogs, and if she does (hi Lorri!), well, if there are no pix there is still an element of surprise. Right? Of course right.

Now that I'm here, I guess I can tell you that I started out to knit them on US 1's. This despite the pattern instruction to knit them on US 2's. Yep, living on the edge. But it's a 64-stitch sock, and I've never met a 64-stitch sock yet that didn't fit my feet when knit on 1's, my preferred sock needles for the tight gauge.

Until now.

Actually, everything would have been fine if not for the fact that I wanted to try the twisted ribbing specified in the pattern. Not to mention the 1x1 two-strand cast-on (despite the fact that Mona Schmidt, the designer herself, commented on the Blue Blog that she did not choose that cast-on. In fact, she says she has never even tried it.

And a further note of interest (to some): The book describes this as "a smooth two-stranded tubular cast-on". I'm here to tell you that it is all those things, except tubular. I mainly tried it because it was advertised as tubular, and you may remember that I have been wanting to learn tubular cast-on. I jumped in, thinking now's the time.

Only it ain't. Don't get me wrong, it's a very nice cast-on, one that I intend to use again and again. But it ain't tubular cast-on.

But I digress. Back to the ribbing. 64 stitches of 1x1 twisted rib is too darn tight on me. I actually had a night where I tossed and turned, wondering how to resolve my aversion to knitting socks on #2 needles and the too-tight cast-on. Yeah, I'm weird like that.

Some time in the middle of the night, I had an "aha!" moment. I needed a 2.75 mm needle, something in-between my KnitPicks size 1 (2.5 mm) and size 2 (3 mm). And as I was going on a yarn crawl the next day with my good blogger-friend (and now a real-life friend!) Maia, spinner and knitter extraordinaire, I would be able to snap one up. Which I did.

When I was able to think about this wide-awake, I decided to frog what I had done, knit the twisted rib cuff on the 3 mm needle, the first repeat on the 2.75 mm needle, and the rest on the 2.5 mm needle. This seems to have worked, as they say, like a charm. Quite possibly the 2.75 is even an unnecessary complication, but since I had bought one, what the heck.

I know, I know, if I had been thinking about this properly while wide-awake I should have been able to quickly leap to the conclusion that a different needle for the cuff was all that was needed. A sleepless night could have been avoided. But I've never knit socks on more than one size needle before. That's my pathetic excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

Warn the kids.