Project 52: Get Knitted

This year has been, without a doubt, the year of the knitting needles. I first taught myself to knit in January almost six years ago now and since then I've found myself spending more and more time working on projects. It's probably overtaken reading as one of my main pasttimes (mainly because you can sit and knit a lot more easily than you can sit and read, and you don't look like you're being quite as antisocial).

But since last year I've gotten a lot more into knitting than I was previously. I've started spending more time on Ravelry (I'm Caitak over there) and that seems to have sparked my enthusiasm. Just as I hate to be without a book, I now hate to have nothing on my needles).

I like to think that I've improved as well.

This is my latest project, hot off the needles yesterday.

It seems like there's a sort of divide in the knitting world (well, there are quite a few divides, but this is on of them); those who knit socks, and those who don't. I've always been one of those who don't. Well, there was an attempt many many moons ago, but I only made one sock and never actually sewed it up.

This is part of a pair that I knitted from the top down, in the round, using the magic loop method, and along the way taught myself how to pick up stitches and use Kitchener stitch to graft the toe together. For non-knitters that's probably all a bunch of gobble-de-gook but basically it means I started at the cuff and worked down to the toe; I knitted it all in one piece without having to sew up a seam; I didn't use double pointed needles but instead a really long cable with a needle at each end and slid the stitches around as I worked on them; I added extra stitches by 'picking them up' from the side of my work; and I used a special way of finishing which involves knitting together stitches with a sewing needle.

It does sound kind of complicated and that's why I've put off learning to do socks for so long, but now that I've done it, well, they're actually quite easy. I'm quite looking forward to trying more in the future... well, once I've tried some of the other things that are in my queue to make.