Spreading the knitting addiction

So last night was the first "Knit-in" at the Needling Yarn. It started at 6 pm and went until 9. I really liked meeting people I don't normally see when I am there. It was also fun to see all of the projects people were working on. Most of them were actually working on socks. A few shawls and sweaters were added to the mix. Mom came with me because of car mishaps and subsequent carpooling. She was the only one without a project because it has been so long since she has knitted. I, of course, am happy to help anyone find yarn goodness and had her pick a skein of worsted weight yarn for a pair of socks.

It was like she was riding a bike. Mom just started flying with the stitches. By the end of the night, she already had the first toe made and was ready to start knitting in the round. I had her start socks the way I do (a provisional cast on a la Wendy Johnson) because I can explain it the best and because I wasn't sure how many stitches we would have to cast on if we started at the very top of the toe. This way you cast on the total number of stitches you wanted on the foot. I also had her do a Sherman heel which is going to be exactly the same type of wrapping and turning goodness as that of the toe. It is a good way to re-enforce what was already learned and you don't have to increase. She'll probably have the sock done by tomorrow that is how fast she picked it up again. :)

I also helped someone Kitchener her toe together. Kitchenering is very difficult to explain if you don't have illustrated instructions. It isn't exactly something you can easily read the directions for and immediately understand. I know I didn't understand it until I read these Kitchener instructions.

In addition, I also helped someone working on her second pair of socks, two at a time, top-down with heel flap. Unfortunately, we had to frog the heel flaps because she had an incorrect number of stitches and had done some other stuff. We could have fudged it and made the stitches work but she wanted it to be right. She was a very good sport with the frogging. I hope I explained about the picking up the stitches along the heel flap clearly. To illustrate what I meant, I even drew some pictures in her pattern. Hopefully she will go into the shop if she has any questions.

All in all, it was a fun night with lots of good food. (Someone brought sushi! Yummmm) I meant to take pictures but forgot to take the camera out of the bag. :( I also only knit about 10 stitches the entire time. Next time I am bringing socks!