Several years ago, I was browsing Amazon (or perhaps it was another site?) for a birthday gift for my friend Kirsten, a fellow knitter. I stumbled upon great reviews for this book that teaches knitters how to knit socks on two circular needles. Of course, it was Cat Bordhi’s Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles. I ended up buying the book for my friend, but I never thought about picking it up myself until I listened to a Knit Picks podcast several months ago that mentioned the technique, as well as knitting two socks at the same time. I finally decided that maybe I should put my dpns to rest and try out this new technique with some hand-dyed Herdwick yarn I picked up at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in 2006 (and I am so upset with myself from losing the details of who I bought it from! If I find them, I’ll update this post).
For my first pair of socks knit at the same time on two circular needles, I followed Bordhi’s Cable-top socks, though I ended up omitting the cable top. Overall, I thought the pattern was fairly easy to follow though it took me about 3 times to properly cast on and start the socks with the "Turning the Toe" technique — I definitely needed a lot of patience to do this correctly and move on to the rest of the socks. It also took a lot of patience for me to figure out how to do two socks at the same time, but I found a few helpful websites, especially this one: http://www.az.com/~andrade/knit/twocirculars.html. And Danielle, my colleague who I gave the socks, reports that the turning the toe technique did in fact produce a wonderfully comfortable toe portion of the sock.
A few issues with the pattern: I found the pattern to make socks that were way too large for my feet (I wear a size 7.5 shoe), even though I had followed the 60 percent of foot guidance for the length (the socks ended up being about 1 1/2 inches too long after completing the gusset/turning the heel). I used size 3 circulars to get the correct gauge. The socks picture above and below are 11 inches long , 10 inches from the top of the ribbing to the bottom of the sock and 6 inches from the top to the ankle. There is a 1 1/4 inch double rib at the top of the socks. I’ll have to remember to scale down the patterns a bit when I make other socks in the book.
And knitting two socks at the same time with two circular needles: I took this project on the road a lot and I found that I couldnt find a good way to store the needles/yarn so that it wouldn’t get tangled up — two working socks on two longer circular needles with two balls of yarn ended up taking up a lot of space! I also knit them over a period of 6 months or so, so I cant quite accurately comment on how fast this technique is, but knitting two socks at the same time was FANTASTIC — no more feeling disappointed by having only one finished sock!
I look forward to starting another pair soon, especially after seeing Danielle’s reaction to getting this pair!
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