I have finally cast on the Hopscotch socks designed by talented fellow Oxford Bluestocking, Liz. In attempts to conquer my morbid fear of charts, and in view of expanding my hand-knit sock collection, these delectable socks seemed an ideal project. The radio show is finally winding down and I need a new diversion. Plus I think the sock is just lovely; I love all the detailing in the cables.

You may remember me writing about the sock-swatch-tube, a genius idea I picked up in the Twisted Sisters Sock workbook; the idea is to keep a continuous swatch on the go, where new sock patterns can be tried out for gauge in the round, without having to cast on anew each time you want to swatch. Like a circular sketchpad which allows you to constantly work with colours and stitch-patterns, the sock swatch also somehow acts like a diary of socks tried out so far and a record of yarns used.

I started my sock-swatch with the Jaywalker pattern in Lorna’s laces as you can see in this photo. It was very easy to decrease down to the right number for the Hopscotch socks and start practising on those leg cable patterns.

I’m very excited about knitting a toe-up sock and I really enjoyed doing the magic cast on from Knitty, although in spite of knitting through the backloop on needle 2 as instructed in the tutorial, I appear to have somehow twisted the stitches on the toe… I also screwed up the cables quite a few times and now realise that I need to organise the charts in a way where I won’t keep losing my place, repeating myself and generally screwing it up. I believe a giant version of the chart and a large piece of cardboard to block out the rest of the page will suffice to keep this miscreant on track.

…the colourway is from the Woolhunter Yarns ebay shop and smells pleasingly clean and soapy. I got it just before going into surgery for my feet, thinking it would be already knit by now! if only I could knit projects as quickly as I can think them up. It is called lemon and lime but reminds me in colour very much of my courgette plants so I think I will always think of these as being my courgette plant socks…

These are meant to be orange pumpkin plants, but I’m nearly certain these are courgette flowers and on the weekend I turned them into fritters to test. I read about these in Carluccio’s amazing recipe book and have wanted to try them out ever since.

Delicious. Just the thing to provide nourishment in between editing and knitting.