Wow, has it really been a whole month since the last time I checked in? Yikes. I’ve been a bit hunkered down with school work, but that definitely doesn’t mean I haven’t been knitting! I spent October knitting along with the Through the Loops Mystery Sock for Socktoberfest. For those of you unfamiliar with the premise, Kirsten publishes a sock pattern in 5 parts, one part each week. First you get the cuff, then the leg, the heel, the foot, and finally the toe. You don’t know what the sock will look like going into it, so it’s a bit of an adventure.

Those people who finish a pair by the end of November are eligible for prizes. In order to motivate myself I thought I’d try something new – I’ve been knitting both socks at once! At first I tried casting them both on the same superlong needle, magic loop style, but this just wasn’t for me. Instead I picked up an extra circular needle and I’ve been switching off between the two socks. First I knit a cuff, then another cuff, then a leg, and another leg, and so on and so on. This is MUCH more interesting to me than knitting one whole sock and then doing the whole thing over again! This will probably end up being the fastest pair of socks I’ve ever knit. I know a month and a half isn’t exactly fast for socks, but I have serious sock finishing issues. For me, this is a miracle. I’m almost done with my second foot section, and since the toes are so small and quick I should have a completed pair to show you in a couple days! I’ll be sure to blog about them with all the details at that point.

My other active WIP is for vestvember! There are vestvember groups on flickr and ravelry, FYI. This is a nice, casual, friendly knitalong. Got a vest you started a long time ago? Come finish it up! Don’t think you’ll finish a vest during the month of November? No biggie!

I had a hard hard time deciding on a vest pattern, but I eventually went for the challenge of knitting my first large colorwork garment, and my first steeked project. It’s Eunny Jang’s Deep V Argyle Vest. (here it is on ravelry) I’m working this in cascade 220 with a nice chocolate brown and robin’s egg blue. I just got into the colorwork section last night and so far I’m having a blast.

The two main runner up vests I was considering were Blustery from My Fashionable Life and Sexy Vesty from Canary Sanctuary. I was particularly inspired by Tina’s tweed vesty. I have yarn in my stash that would be great for each of these, so hopefully I’ll get around to them sooner rather than later! I’ll admit the appeal of knitting a garment that doesn’t involve sleeves is indeed awesome.