Thursday, December 15, 2011

Sock Loom

Yesterday, I got my Christmas present early.  Dwain bought me a sock loom. (from www.knittinglooms.com) So far I'm having a lot of fun with it. 

I have carpel tunnel pretty bad in both hands and it's very hard to knit even with regular needles.  I even have to use circulars just so I don't drop them when my fingers go numb.  But, I'll never give up knitting because I love it so much!  I knew without a doubt that working with teeny-tiny double-pointed needles to make socks would practically be impossible for me. Hence, the sock loom!

Many of you know that I knit for charity and that most if not all of my yarn has been donated.  Well, I ended up with enough sock yarn to make at least a dozen pairs of socks.  I really, really wanted to make socks, too.  The CT problems were really getting in the way though.

I'm really glad I got the sock loom.  I've only been working with it for a couple hours so far and I've all ready found a rhythm.  There is a small learning curve if you want to learn how to really knit and purl on the device and keeping track of where you are is also a small annoyance.  But, both of those are easily remedied.  Doing a couple rows of each stitch on some scrap yarn helps you to learn the stitches lickety-split and a piece of first-aid tape marked with some pen lines really helps you remember which stitches are knit or purled.

My only gripe about this wonderful device is trying to knit or purl on these inside pegs.  They are extremely difficult to get to, in my opinion.  Just as I'm really getting into working around the loom, I end up on those inside pegs and come to a screeching halt!  They take me twice as long to get the pick between them and not drop the loops.  I really don't know of any kind of solution to this other than actually having a different loom for each different size of sock as opposed to the adjustable one.  I guess for economy's sake and storage, this is the only real option for sock looming at this time.  I'll just have to deal with it. :-)