Sock it to me!

One of the things I like about knitting and crocheting is there is so much to learn and I feel there are so many 'firsts' I can experience.

The other day, I came across a sock loom that I had bought a few years ago. It's the Prym Knitting Sock Loom-Large, I've been avoiding it since I bought it because the instructions made sock-making seem difficult. The instructions are in 7 different languages, so it's a bit of a challenge to locate and follow the english instructions. I cast on some dark grey sock yarn (Always use a dark colour when you're trying something new, it's so easy to see! /end sarcasm) and gave it a go because all my current knitting/crocheting projects are blanket-sized blankets. Not terribly portable!

So far I have 3/4 of a sock done (not an up to date picture because said sock is buried in my knitting bag). The knitting stitch is fairly simple but I did struggle with the increases and decreases, leaving me with some holes on one side. These are practice socks that I'll keep, I'm hoping by the time I finish this pair, when I start a pair for my boyfriend they will be hole-less and less mis-shapen. (and hopefully no rolled edge, why is it rolling?!)

It's been an interesting experience so far, I'm not terribly sure it's any faster then knitting on 4 needles. Once I'm done these pairs I'm going to try some socks the regular knitted way, I'm curious to see the difference.

I also finished the third shawl-ghan for the wedding, 2 purple and one blue so far. I found a pattern
here that had the look I wanted and modified it to the size I needed. I've been playing around with different borders on each one, the first was a big ruffle, the second was a flat edge and the third has a nice small ruffle. I have no more ideas that don't involve a ruffle somehow. Luckily, I came across a Beginners Crochet Book in a thrift store and low and behold it has a section on different edgings. Well worth the .50 just for that bit. I look forward to trying the edgings on any future shawl-ghans.

I worked on another major yarn project this week as well, it was quite a puzzler!