First the announcement: I am going to start my blogiversary giveaway tomorrow (Sunday April 26) and run it for a week. Important things to know are: 1. I am giving away two same/similar prize collections; 2. You can stop by each day with another comment which equals another entry in the drawing (only one entry per day). I may add another requirement of what you comment about, but that hasn’t been firmed up yet. So be sure to stop back!
Now the toy! I have been wanting to try knitting socks using the two-at-a-time method, but with the self-striping yarn, I didn’t know how you could guess at dividing the skein of yarn into two balls, have the pattern start at the same place on the second ball, and have enough yarn in each ball for one sock.
I did some searching on line (what DID we do before the internet???), and found the key is to weigh the yarn. A typical two-sock skein of yarn is 100 grams, so (and I’m no big math wizard so this is as complicated as it gets) you need two (about) 50 gram balls.
We live in Minnesota where Target stores are almost as plentiful as Wal-Marts in Texas. After a very short trip to Target, this is the kitchen yarn scale I came home with. It easily changes from ounces to grams, and weighs up to 6.6 pounds. It also has a large enough surface to support even a large skein of yarn. PERFECT!
This particular skein of yarn did weigh exactly 100 grams (I test-weighed a bunch of yarns, and they ranged from 95 to 102 grams, without label band). The yarn pulls from the center, so the yarn doesn’t match on the outside of the ball because they came out to be different lengths. And aren’t these colors yummy? This is some “ON line” sock yarn.
The tricky part is to find the exact same spot in the pattern to cut the yarn and start the second ball. I am pretty sure I did it right, but I’m not winding any more yarn until I get to knit these socks up two at a time and know for sure that I did it right! And that I even like knitting two socks at a time.
After winding and checking and winding and checking, I was at 50 grams, which was the half-way point for this skein. Of course I was nowhere near the starting point of the pattern, so I checked both directions to see which way would waste the least yarn. It makes the two balls a couple of grams apart in weight (actually 52g and 48g), but that won’t matter. I have more yarn than that left over after knitting up a pair of socks.
A couples of notes: make sure you wind your yarn in the same direction so one sock doesn’t have a reversed pattern; don’t wind your yarn too tightly (like I tend to do).
Sue
