Show-N-Tell: sock update

Okay so as promised here are the Show-N-Tell photos of the progress I made this weekend on my partners socks.

I am a tad concerned that the gold is a bit too orangy ... although the kids like it a lot better than the others I had to choose from which was just too yellow, and they are tougher critics than I am on my projects (they have no problem telling me 'oh that's ugly' or 'it would look better with these colors')
As you can see I got adventurous and decided to do two at a time on circs. Very adventurous taking into account that I hadn't finished the original red socks that I had started on two circs just to get an idea of what it would be like -- and these are going so much better, probably because the needles are metal instead of wood too.

Now I watched the video on "Let's Knit 2Gether" that featured the 2 cable method for making socks and Kat did a great job at explaining it so it finally kicked in. she used two needles with silver tips just different cables (Knit Picks purple, Addi nickel) ... however I rarely look at the cables themselves and I'm one of those 'product loyalty' type people so I got Boye's in two different colors -- pink and green/blue (depending who you ask) ... and then I can tell if I am using the correct needle at the point I make the stitch instead of finding a mistake when pushing the stitches off the needle onto the cable.

Kat doesn't really get into it, but she does mention the Magic Loop method and gives a quick peek as to how to work the stitches without really violating any copyrights.

Now on the HSS4 group we were talking about Stop-Fasts and how to keep yourself from real head aches when you have to rip stitches out ... so here is a shot of the first Stop-fast (aka LifeLine) on my socks.
I placed it where the sock switches from ribbing to plain stockinette stitch, so that if there is an issue I will not have to worry about redoing the ribbing again ... well okay, I did a single row of stockinette so that if I did have to rip bit back I would know which way the stitches were to face.

As you can see I use a yarn that contrasts or is different from the colors I am using so when I finish the sock it will be easier to find for removal.

The important part is to make sure you leave enough extra yarn so that when the time comes to take it out, you can cut it without risking hitting your stitches. In this case I used a bright yellow acrylic so it would really pop.

This method is easier on the cabled needles but I really like the stitches on the needles so that I don't accidentally split the yarn/wool while passing the Stopfast thru. You can find instructions for this all over the web but I will put up my version if anyone shows any interest.

I just hope I will have enough yarn to complete the socks. As you can see I am keeping things extremely simple, at least for now, it won't get fancier until the end. There is so much I want to say about the pattern but I don't want to give away too much yet.

to be continued ....