Going Bold

After three rounds of challenging knitting, Sock Madness is in Day 3 of a 10-day rest period. It's a wise and welcome respite from the Madness. Some participants are indeed resting sore wrists and setting upturned homes to rights, some are knitting the bonus SM patterns, some are doing other things. I rested a bit, tidied a bit, considered making a sorely-needed project bag, then decided to knit myself a skirt. When it comes to knitting projects, I don't have an Always List, but if I did, a skirt would be on it as one of the garments I've always wanted to knit. Amazing to relate, I haven't ever, yet.

A bit of stash-diving yielded four balls of Noro Taiyo, just the thing for a spring-weight Lanesplitter by Tina Whitmore. I love Noro yarns with an unreasoning love, in this case the rainbow-y goodness of colorway 40. I also know that even if Taiyo comes in center-pull balls, it never hurts to wind it to check for knots and sudden color changes.



I also unearthed a quantity of Taiyo Sock, swatched that, and was both pleased by the fabric and despairing over its slow progress. Much as I love worsted-weight Taiyo, I'm somewhat hesitant about how its bright colors, strong texture, and high cotton content will work as a skirt. I would think sock-weight Taiyo might yield a fabric with more subtle texture that has better drape and higher resistance to the dreaded seat spring. On the other hand, I do need a break from knitting fingering yarn, so I'm going bold with worsted-weight.



Progress so far is quite beguiling. I'm working the seamless variation of the skirt, so cast on using Judy's Magic Cast On instead of a provisional cast on and am holding the bottom row of live stitches on a circular needle. The trigonometry calculator recommended by paulasulli made figuring the length of the diagonal easy. After fumbling a bit with the edges, I moved the increase/decrease in from the edge and began slipping the first stitch of every row. I thought about frogging back to fix the initial wonky edges, but decided against it. Trying not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Onward!