Two Socks at Once?

I don't knit socks. This is what I always say to people. Then I think back over the socks I have knitted - several pairs (yellowish, green stripes, blue stripes) for 'im indoors; several pairs for me - plain but fancy yarn. Then I got fed up with knitting plain socks, however fancy the yarn so I made the False Flame Crew socks; Amber's socks; Sideways Socks Supreme (all from "Socks, socks, socks"); Pomatomus and Monkey Socks (both by Cookie A); Travelling Vine and Kaibashira (in progress as we speak). So I do knit socks, it's just that plain socks bore me and fancy socks always involve making two exactly the same, which is tedious. Then I saw this article in Knitty, about how you could knit two socks at the same time, one inside the other and i thought, "I can do that."

Some people (and she knows exactly who she is) were sceptical - they thought I'd gone right round the bend and assured me that there were treatment options for my affliction. When I tried the cast on I was inclined to agree. I put it down and decided it was a ridiculous idea. But it was still there in the back of my mind. I tried again. I made this:



See, that's the cast on. I am using two different colours. I might be slightly bonkers but I am not a complete maniac- this is a practice piece, not a real sock real socks.

I knitted a bit and I even learned how to purl:



I knitted some more:



I made a mistake (easily done) and corrected it (not so easy but not impossible). This looks as if it might be doable. I might just give it a try. I'd want to start with a "plain" pair but, since I can now knit and purl, I don't see why some sort of pattern might not be possible. Now all of you think I've lost my marbles - I just know you do.

In other news, I have signed up for Yarn Smackdown, which I heard about on Ravelry, that den of iniquity. It's a bit like the Hat Attack but arranged in "brackets", so you play against one other knitter and then the winner moves on to play the winner of another bracket. We'll be knitting a hat, so to get myself into the swing of things, I've knitted yet another hat.

This is the Halley's Comet Hat by Marnie MacLean, which I also saw on Ravelry. I've used the same Jaeger Shetland Aran as for the Hat Attack. Same 4mm needles (though I might have been better using slightly larger ones). The pattern says the hat would benefit from blocking. Well, so it would but I couldn't think of a way of doing it apart from wetting it, putting it on and letting it dry on my own head and I didn't think that would be too comfortable. Various options were thought of, assessed and discarded as impractical.

Finally, I settled on this:



Here she is stretched over one of my black hats. It fits very well, but the hat says "Do not wear in the rain" (Don't get me started on how ridiculous that statement is) so I may have to cover the black hat with a plastic bag before I can wet the Comet and stretch it over.

Here's the side view:


I'm quite pleased with that.

Ravelry Day at Crafty Cottage in Warwick is on Saturday. If anyone is nearby, come and say hello!