Twice as Nice

Eureka! The cure! In the past, I’ve attempted to cure my “Second Sock Syndrome” by a variety of means up to and including allowing a year to pass before finishing the second one. Only modestly more successful was my last method of knitting two pair at a time alternating the style and yarn. Lately, I’ve been reading quite a lot about knitting two socks at the same time and, I must confess, I thought it was a bit of a cheat…until now.

Though I don’t always write about it, I try each weekend, when I tend to have large blocks of knitting time, to experiment with a particular yarn, project or technique. This past weekend, I decided to put my head around two socks simultaneously on two circular needles, a bit of a stretch because I tend to be a traditionalist when it comes to socks. Since I have no fewer than three sock projects going, two sample pair for the shop and one pair in Misti Alpaca Hand Painted Sock yarn promised to dear Hubby, I really needed to speed the process up. 

I’ve been knitting on two circulars quite a bit lately so the mechanics were not a problem. I found a couple of video tutes online to help deal with the cast-on; the best of the dubious bunch was Liat’s Limitless Cast-On which focuses on the magic loop method. Since I favor a tubular cast-on for socks, I wound up casting on with dp’s, then knitting the stitches over to circulars once the tubular cast-on was complete. 

I must say, my experiment has been a huge success! I worried at first that the time I spent fiddling with the position of the needles and yarn would offset any gains I’d made but not so. I found myself cruising along at speed in no time. I can see myself using this method for knitting sleeves in the round as well. A big bonus to knitting two of anything at a time is that both items are exactly alike 🙂

For anyone who’s interested, here is my method for working a Tubular Cast-On in the round. I use it for socks, cuffs, hats and more. I’m sure I did not invent it, but it’s an easy method to learn and to memorize. Happy Monday!