I had some left over yarn from the pippi socks for my sister so I made myself some anket socks! It took me forever because I was trying to learn how to do a short row heel and toe. I finally figured it out and I am pleased with how they came out. I used the pattern on knitty.com and added a crochet decoration around the ankle.

You can see the line where I switched stitches in the second dark purple stripe. Oh well, it still fits well!

So I figured out why my stitches were going diagonally. I was doing the knit stitch wrong! How did this happened?! Did I learn it wrong? Or subconsciously modify it? I looked up the purl stitch and it turns out I was purling wrong too. Not way off, just slightly so that in non-round straight stitch it didn’t seem to matter; I guess the two mistakes just canceled each other or something. But when I did all knits round and round, it came out diagonal. So at the ankle of one of my sisters new socks there is a line where you can tell that I switched stitches and where they suddenly start going straight. Its not obvious, especially from a distance so I don’t think it will matter. Anyway, thats an interesting lesson learned!

I have decided to knit my sister a pair of socks for Christmas. I am over half way done with the first one and so far so good.

I am using the ‘pippi knee stocking’ pattern from the Stitch andBitch book. I changed the striping pattern to that it alternate grey with the two purples but other than that I am sticking to the directions. I practiced turning the heal with some scrap yarn successfully so I am hopeful that I won’t screw these up too bad either

I have discovered that I enjoy knitting ‘in the round’ as its called. I also like the double pointed needles. I found a whole set of sizes 0-12 for only $16 on Amazon. And I think I can buy some needle protectors and make some ghetto single pointed needles. That means I never have to buy needles again! Unless I decide to knit something requiring a really gigantic needle. But I much prefer the tight stitched look of smaller needles so that will probably never happen.

Two problems I have had with the ’round knitting’: 1. When I am casting on my stiches seem to disappear. I will count and recount and then the next row will be missing one. I don’t get it. So I just add 1 more than I think I need when casting on.

2. The flow of my stitches looks crooked.. like everything is diagonally stretched or something. I haven’t figured out a solution for this besides ‘deal with it’.