Sockin' It to Myself

I decided to start SockTwo  so that I could do the two in tandem, and thus practice (and maybe really learn) all the parts of a sock twice in a row, really close together.   By the time the new yarn and needles arrived this week, SockTwo's ribbed cuff was between 2.5 and 3 inches and the messy bits had "healthy" ribbing above and below.  Kind of tree-like, the way a tree's bark will show where an old injury was, but around it the bark has the normal pattern. 

In the meantime, before starting SockTwo, I moved SockOne from three base needles to four and drove myself crazy for a few rounds trying to figure out how to hold the extra needles with knitting with the fifth.   Two days later, I had it, and yes--like the 5-needle version better.  However...this means my "free" needle is needed for both projects (OK, since I really can't knit on both simultaneously)  as I have one four-needle set and one five-needle set (both US size 5.)  



SockTwo is on the left, SockOne on the right, as of the last row knit.  The blue needles were inherited from my mother--they're aluminum.  The steely looking ones are steel.   The yarn is 100% wool, worsted-weight.  Both socks were cast on with the long-tail cast-on, on larger needles than they would be worked, and both then had one row of knit stitches into the cast-on row before starting the 2x2 ribbing.   When SockTwo catches up with SockOne I'll alternate rows of ribbing until the cuff's the length I want, do one heel flap then the other, then turn the heels one after the other, and so on.   The goal is no more than a one day separation between finishing one and the other.