After I finished last night's post, I started reading the instructions for the Magic Cast On for my socks. My eyes started to glaze over and my brain started to hurt! So I went back online and watched a video on how to do it. Perhaps it would have helped if I had turned the sound up, but we were watching tv, so I just watched the demonstration. There seemed to be a lot of winding wool round needles, without any recognisable form of casting on. When my wool fell off the needles yet again, I gave up on the Magic Cast On. But there was a little tickle at the back of my brain ....... socks, after all, are just tubes (with shaping) and I know how to cast on and knit a tube with two needles. So I adapted the method, and hooray, the first sock was started
I got the idea from the way I knitted the sock for my mobile phone
It's a very simple pattern - you cast on an even number of stitches, then every row you work p1,sl1 to the end. If you went on knitting, a tube with a closed end would form.
As I didn't want to go on knitting a tube, after working two rows, which meant I had worked all the stitches, for the third row I purled the first stitch, slipped the next stitch onto a needle at the back and repeated this to the end of the row. This gave me two lots of stitches, joined in the middle. I could then go on with the sock, working increases on every second row .... just the other way round from normal sock knitting when you get to the toe and decrease! My increases are slightly untidy, but with practice, I'm sure I will improve (and nobody sees the toes of my socks!!)
It is still very cold, but we haven't had any more snow. The birds are spending far longer at the feeders ....... they need to eat a lot more food to keep warm
The horses didn't look very happy, grazing in the snow
The birds make sure every last little bit of seed is eaten
Just like the climbing rose in the back garden, this one on the front of the house is determined to go on flowering
Tomorrow (weather permitting) it's the Christmas Fair ..... I'll tell you all about it on Monday. I hope you have a good weekend, love Anne