Kitchener stitch — do you love it, or hate it? When I first learned to knit socks, grafting the toes with kitchener stitch made me nervous. Incredibly nervous. I'm not sure why, because if you take your time and follow the steps, it's not difficult. Maybe it was just a big fear of "messing up."
Anyway, I grafted the toe of a sock yesterday — and it went without a hitch. I have no nervousness whatsoever about kitchener anymore. So if it makes you feel queasy, hang in there! As with many things in life, the more you do it, the easier it becomes.
The sock in question is my next pattern, the Rowhouse Socks. They're knit in hand-dyed superwash merino by Pigeonroof Studios (the same indie dyer whose gradient set I used for my Purlish Mitts). For this design, I tweaked the little houses from my Rowhouse Hat so they'd work top-down, and jazzed it up a little by using three colors instead of two.
These socks require focused attention at the beginning, but once you're past the colorwork, the knitting is easy. That makes them a great travel project and perfect for taking to knit night or work. They also make good walk-and-knit projects, if you're so inclined. As you can guess from these photos, I love to walk and knit — as long as it's not freezing cold.
The pattern's written and edited, and the socks are blocked. All that's left is a photo shoot. So they'll be ready for release soon — probably next week!