Aaaahhh...

... back to normal! I found my knitting groove again.

I took an all-day training course at work yesterday. In preparation for what I hoped could be 7 hours of knitting on Wednesday, I spent some time on Tuesday night casting on for the first sock in the second pair of Red Sox socks.

I decided that for Dad's pair, I was going to use a smaller needle than for Mom's -- I wanted a denser fabric. I also wanted the ribbing to pull in more (relative to the sock leg) than on Mom's socks. Hers were done with ribbing and st stitch both on 3's. For Dad's, I did ribbing on 1's and sock on 2's.

Well, despite a lovely gauge swatch and some not-too-complex maths, I screwed something up. I knit about 3" before I discovered that the ribbed top was too small for his leg. I would have discovered this sooner, but I couldn't really try it on during class, so I had to wait for a break to go to the restroom and check it out. Conveniently, Dad's calf is the same size as mine, so it's easy to measure for fit! I'm guessing that my tension was too tight as I was knitting the first few rounds of the tubular cast on and ribbing.

I put version 1.0 aside, and cast on version 2.0 during lunch break. I used size 2's for both the ribbing and the st st leg. I got about 2.5" into it, took a bathroom break, and decided that yes, it would most likely fit.

Then, I cast on version 2.1 (i.e. the second sock!) and knit about 1" of ribbing last night. I'm bringing it to Stitch n Bitch at lunch today, and hope to finish the ribbing and start the leg.

At this point, I'll put both socks back onto my Magic Loop needle. Maybe then I'll even take a photo!