I think I found a new use for my acrylic yarn July 24, 2008

My cousin’s 2nd birthday is next month.  I’m sending a small care package for both of my little cousins with knitted fun stuffs.  First the pink socks for my cousin Fiona and now I’m putting together green cable socks for my cousin Carter.  I originally thought that the acrylic yarn might not be soft enough for socks.  But after knitting the first sock, it doesn’t seem so bad.  Plus a little washing will (hopefully) soften it up a bit.

I’m using this pattern from Lion Brand Yarn.  The only thing I would change about it the next time I knit them, is to put cables on both sides of the sock.  Having knit the first sock, I don’t know how much I like it being alone.  Then again, if you think about it, you’ll probably only see the side with the cable on it.  Hmm.  On the plus side, my toe looks a lot better.  With the pink socks, the toes ended up really super pointy.  These green socks turned out flatter.

This is also my first project with my new wooden needles.  I feel that the wood needles were more comfortable while knitting with the acrylic yarn.  When I was knitting my doll my hands cramped up quite often when knitting with the metal needles.  I’m not sure if it’s just me, but there were a few times where I was nervous I would snap the needles in half.  Mostly this was noticeable during the first few rows and then whenever I was doing decreases (like the k2tog).  Luckily there have been no mishaps.

So we are going camping this weekend and while I’m not sure how much knitting I’ll be able to do (other than on the drive there and back), I for sure will try to crank out more socks from what I have left of acrylic yarn (the pretty light grass green and a bright blue).  My bigger projects haven’t really been put on hold, but I can pretty much guarantee that I won’t work on them ’til next week when my knitting pal comes back.  They’re really items that need a few hours of intense concentration.  Plus I’ll be submitting these socks into the Summer KAL/CAL!

On a sidenote, I’m really sad that I wasn’t able to peruse more at Prairie Yarn this past weekend.  😦  There were a lot of beautiful yarns that I just wanted to touch and sift through.  But hopefully I’ll be able to order some more yarn from KnitPicks plus a circular needle.  My friend has been using her circular needles and loves them.