The race is on

Breaking with a relatively new tradition, last year I did not knit xmas socks. To make up for it this year, I am not only knitting socks as xmas gifts, they will be knit from xmas-themed colorways. Unlike the Yarn Harlot, who can knit a couple of pairs over a weekend, socks take me much longer. Before I retired, I might complete a pair over the course of a month. There aren't enough months between now and xmas, though, so I'd better double up that effort.

I'm fairly dedicated to toe-up socks these days, but discovered the hard way that self-striping yarn is not conducive to short row toes.

Then I had what I call a stupid day, one of those days when I can't seem to do anything right. In this case, despite have executed a Turkish cast on multiple times in the past, I simply could not get it to work; after a couple of rows, I consistently came up one stitch short and was unable to figure out where that stitch went. So I tried some other toe-up cast ons, each a big FAIL. I wasted HOURS on this fruitless task. ARGH!

Fortunately, the stupid day was followed by a better one, and I figured out that I needed to hold onto the tail to keep from losing that stitch. Two Turkish cast on sock toes coming right up.

To avoid the dreaded second sock syndrome, I knit both socks in parallel. To complete my xmas mission, I need a schedule to tell me how many inches to knit per day. Ordinarily, I do not set knitting deadlines, but between the desire to return to tradition AND to knit these gifts in xmas-themed yarn, I am making an exception. We'll see how that works out.