Stripey socks

In the interests of eating up some of the sock yarn that I've got stashed away, I started on a new pair of socks last night. In the interests of not being bored with yet another pair of toe-up-socks-with-short-row-toes-and-heels (although I've only knit 2 pairs of those -- so I can't really claim boredom, can I?), I decided to knit these socks top-down. Oooh, I know, how wild and crazy can we get, huh? =P

The main reason for knitting these socks top-down was so I could learn the tubular cast-on. With help from my mom and some pictures with confusing Chinese descriptions and the usually-incomprehensible-to-me Knitter's Handbook, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. Here's the practice cast-on:



It's sort of hard to see, but notice the ribby-looking cast-on edge. And here is the sock-in-progress, reclining in my Easter-basket-turned-sock-basket. I think I switched the knits and purls around when I joined in the round though, but I'm just going to leave it like that because it still looks better than my usual cast-on edge. And there's still sock #2 to practice on besides. =)



Oh, and the yarn is Regia Ringel, colour 5048, clown. =)