Rosalie - You can do it! The biggest problem I had when casting on was figuring out what ‘spin your needle 180 degrees’ meant. Which part did you get stuck on? Maybe I can help. I’ll try to explain the cast on:
When you cast on you’ll be holding the needle up and down so that the two points of the needle are facing North and South.
Put your two slip knots on the needle. Yarn A’s slip knot (with the working yarn on the right side of the needle) should be put on the needle first so that it sits below yarn B’s slip knot (with the working yarn on the left side of the needle). (Took me a minute to figure that out cause in the article it doesn’t show you which color yarn is which letter in the example)
Now make your first cast on stitch with color A and put it on your working needle on top of your current yarn B so that now you have three stitches A, B, A on your needle. Make sure the new stitch you just put on your needle has the working yarn hanging off the needle on the right side. (Your one B stitch still has the working yarn hanging from the left side)
Ok, you’re still holding the needle up and down in the same position. Now you’re going to flip your wrist to the left so that the working yarn from yarn A is now on the left and the working yarn from yarn B is on the right. Knit with yarn B and put that new cast on stitch on top of the stitch you just made with yarn A.
Flip your wrist back to the right so that all the working yarn from yarn A is on the right again and the working yarn from yarn B is back on the left side of the needle and make a cast on stitch with your yarn A.
Keep going slowly back and forth until you have cast on the total # of stitches that you want. In the end it sorta looks like a caterpiller.
I am holding my yarn this way—
“front” yarn with my right hand
"back" yarn with my left hand
I tried the little thimble thing that seperated the yarn for you, but could not figure out how to get tension on my 2 yarns that way.
Today at work I turned my heel and got my gusset done and now just knitting on the foot.
It looks really good but since my socks are so tiny I didn’t notice I had forgotten to loop back to the front a couple of times on the leg of the sock.
I don’t feel I can drop the stitch and get rid of the loop since my heel is already done. I don’t think I can fix them. Bummer.
But making these socks even with that mistake has made me want to go forward with “life size” ones. I think I can catch the problems easier.
Here’s my tiny socks with the heel turned…
What’s the little thimble thing that separates yarn for you?
I have a little over an inch done of the leg and I feel like it’s taking forever! I will try to separate the yarn into both hands and see if it’s any easier. I can’t wait to get to the heel!
The thimble thing is by Clover and they call it a yarn guide.
It didn’t work for me. You might have better luck with it and tell me what I am doing wrong. I found just holding the yarn in different hands worked great for me.
I am an English knitter, so I figured if I’m going to knit with both hands I better watch a how to Continental knit demonstration. I watched the one here on this site and another from uTube and I gotta say - It’s so much more efficient!
I just finished knitting 2 rows with my front yarn in my right and my back yarn in my left as Oneyarn did and it’s much easier than holding both of the yarns in my right hand.
Has anyone ever switched from knitting English syle for many years to Continental? I’m having the hardest time keeping the tension as I’m Continental knitting, but I guess it’s like learning how to knit for the first time. Practice, practice and more practice!
Thanks for the info! I had no idea such things were made. I will look for it in the store. In the mean time, I’m going to practice my Contiental knitting.
I discovered two different spots where the 2 socks collided on the leg. I tried to fix it by using a crochet needle as stated in the article, but in the end the yarn won. :sad:
I have completely unraveled and will start again. I’ve decided that the silver lining in all this is that I can now use a smaller needle to get the correct gauge.
I have re-cast on and I’m going to make sure it will be my last time. I’m being very dilligent making sure there aren’t any mistakes before moving onto the next needle. So far I have 10 rows done in a k2,p2 rib.
Needle: US 1 (2.25mm) dpns
Yarn: Regia Silk Color - Colorway 190… I got it on clearance at my LYS this summer
Cast on #: 64 for each sock for a total of 128
I will post a progress picture when I’m done with the leg. It may take me the better part of this month.
Oneyarn - are you done with your sock? I’d love to see a picture.
I guess I’m in on this by accident.
I’ve got it started but I don’t know how fast I’ll be doing it. I mainly started it to practice for a double knit hat I just finished.
For all I know the yarn might be too big, Lion Wool on #4/#3 so it may never get finished.
Holding the yarn is also giving me problems. Continental with the inside sock and English with the outside sock is slow and confusing.
On the double knit hat I was keeping both yarns together and it didn’t stick together (except for the color changes naturally) so I think once I get some length I’m going to go to a 1 hand/2 finger hold dragging both strands forward and back together.
Either that or I’m going to have to try k1 s1 then k-the-other-1 s-the-other-1.
All I know is 2 hands isn’t giving me joy.
I did the cheat cast on the page lists. I liked it so much that’s what I used for my hat … and the 2nd time I redid the sock … and the 3rd time too.
(First time knitted the cast on together, second time didn’t trust that they weren’t stuck together. I smell 2 more restarts in my future when I try the different ways )
I also used the same colors.
I think I’m only 2 or 3 rows into it because I’ve got other stuff I want to do or want to get out of the way before I get two floppy skeins (one thing is to make a knitting bag to hold 2 skein projects).
Yay another fellow knitter doing the 2 socks in one!
I am having the same struggles as you are with holding the 2 yarns. I tried to strand both on one finger and it drove me nuts trying to separate the two.
Oneyarn told me about the Clover Yarn Guide, so I went to my LYS and bought one. It’s very handy, but it’s still not the ideal having to swinging the yarn back and forth between the two socks.
So now i’m knitting with one strand in each hand since it seems to be the most efficient to me, but I am not a continential knitter by nature - so it’s going verrrry slowly.
I can’t wait to see everyone’s progress! :cheering:
After you cast on, before you start knitting, make sure that the yarn that you’ll be knitting with is the same color as the first stitch that you’ll be knitting into. Then, when you’re done with that first stitch, make sure you move the yarn to the front and then knit the second stitch with the same color yarn as that second stitch and keep that yarn in the back. I hope this is helpful.
You took me away from my sweater to mess with the socks again.
I tried 2 strands, 1 hand, 2 fingers. It worked better this time but I ended up using my thumb often to hold the front yarn.
That made holding the needles a little difficult but I at least got a rhythm swinging the yarn.
I didn’t have a problem keeping them separate when doing the hat even when I got down to 12 stitches and I couldn’t use 2 fingers any more, but that was 2 different colors. I guess the hat was practice for the socks.
I saw one of those thimbles but I figure I can make something like that if I figure out how to steer the yarn around with one finger.
I figured out before trying it why the strands can’t stay together all the time. If the backside gets knitted after the front strand gets there it’s crossed over and locked in with the stitch.
So that’s one restart I don’t have to do. Now that I’m thinking about it, missing that part of the instructions was the cause of one of my restarts.
I also tried the k1 s1 p1 s1. It worked but it wasn’t fun or any less confusing. At least I only had to do 1 needle’s worth.
I had a bridge that I fixed with a crochet hook. For not getting very far I at least feel like I accomplished something.
It’s been slow going, but I think I finally got the rhythm of knitting continental and english at the same time. I’m trying to decide how long I should knit the leg before I start on the heel.
Ok this sounds cool,I’m picking up my needles and joining this one right now:woohoo:Only got a couple hours then I’m going out to lunch but will check in later:woot:
