While on my Yarn Trek, I came across a book for knitting toe up socks: Socks a la carte 2: Toes Up! As much as I love to knit socks - and I even have my own master pattern - I have never done a toe-up sock. Probably out of fear of the unknown... Using the figure-eight cast on, I attempted (and failed) to start a toe-up sock a good 20 times until I gave up that day. Even with the pictures, it just wasn't working. Thanks to the group Sock Madness on Ravelry.com, I was able to get a few hints on how to do this cast on and make it look good. Here's what I learned:
- When doing the cast on, include the slip-knot stitch as your cast on stitch.
- Knit a few rows - I knit a total of 2 - on each needle once you've done the cast on in order to make sure that the cast on was good. It also creates a good-looking toe point if you're using variegated yarn.
- The book tells you to distribute the stitches a certain way for a lot of the different toe patterns. For the double-up toe, slip 4 of the sts of one of the needles onto a third needle and then you should have the sts distributed. You'll have to knit the sts on what would be needle 3 (N3) in order to get to the beginning of the round. Then and only then will it work.
Yarn Trek took a total of four days. On days three and four, Peanut and I visited four more shops.
- Grafton Yarn Store: http://www.graftonyarnstore.com/ The shop is absolutely awesome! It's in an older building and set up very well. I got more baby yarn, picturing a back to school/fall colors jumper. The owner was very friendly and invited me to join her Ravelry group to follow sales, etc.
- Main St. Yarn Shop: http://www.mainstyarnshop.com/ This took a while for us to get to from our hometown, but it was definitely worth it. I got some good business start-up advice from the owner, who was actually willing to talk to me about owning a yarn shop. I also picked out some yarn that I plan on using to design a few fall items for my etsy shop.
- Xpressions Beads & Yarn: http://www.xpressionsbeadsnyarn.com/ This was a little bit of a smaller shop, but it is equally devoted to yarn and beads. You can purchase items on their website, or email the owner and put in a special order.
- Fiddlehead Yarns: http://www.fiddleheadyarns.com/ Another quaint shop, but it is much larger than it appears. There is even another room off of the main shop, which I assumed was for classes and/or private knitting.
Handmade knitting needles!
