Finished Toes!

Our toe-up sock KAL started yesterday and we have progress to share! That's Beth's sock on the right (she's using malabrigo sock in the primavera colorway) and mine on the left (using pagewood farms yukon in the fabulous fall colorway).

I'm really excited about the smooth finish from the turkish cast-on. I left the stitches on the two dpn's I used for the cast-on until the third round (which is the 2nd increase round) and I substituted "knit in the front & back" (kfb) for the M1's that the pattern suggests. To get those increases spaced evenly, I did the kfb in the first stitch on needles 1 and 3 and in the 2nd to last stitch on needles 2 and 4 - that leaves one plain knit stitch on the outside...similar to the ssk/k2tog on the edges of cuff-down socks.

I'm hoping we have more participation in this KAL - after all, 28 of you voted on the pattern! (and I didn't vote!) Of course virtual participation is fine...but please share your projects and progress with us on Ravelry.

Casting on for Toe-up Socks.

One of the very cool things about toe-up socks is that there's no seam at the toes (which means no kitchener, which is, in my opinion, one of the very best reasons to knit toe-up socks!). But this also means you have to cast on in a way that allows you to "build" a toe. The Turkish Cast-on is one method - and that's the one suggested by the pattern - so that's the one I researched!

Gotta love the internet, and You Tube (and Google). A quick search for tutorials turned up thousands of results. These are my three favorites.

First, a video showing the cast on with two circular needles (she says it also works for magic loop).


Second - still for circular needles, a blog post with great photos.

And last but not least, a video for dpn lovers (like me!)

Note that you don't need to watch the entire 7 minutes...I managed this small beginning after watching just over 5 minutes of the video.

...I've also realized it might be helpful to do your cast-on while watching the video of your choice - please feel free to cast on ahead of Friday's "official" start date (I think I might need to!)

Hopefully this provides you what you need to get started, but please, if you have any questions, post them in the comments or on Ravelry; we'll respond as quickly as we can - thanks!

And the Winner Is....

a BIG thank you to everyone who voted!!

Here's a link to the pattern and to the Ravelry projects .  I'm still researching tutorials for the toe-up cast on and will follow-up with another blog post before Friday.

Remember - we're launching our KAL this Friday, August 6, at 2pm. If you can't be there in person, please do share your project with us on Ravelry. I've started a thread in our forum - start discussing!