Needling

I have been making good progress on my "Hyacinth" socks. This is the second sock and I am on the last strip.

As I knit back and forth across those purple/pink stitches, I attach the strip to both the left and right sides, closing up the gap. It's a very satisfying process (even if it's a bit finicky).

The pattern strongly recommends using a long circular needle as you have a lot of stitches going at once. Since I started with a provisional cast on and have those stitches waiting on spare string instead of on the needle, I am able to get by with straight needles quite happily.

For a lot of the sock, I only have three needles going, but by the end I'm using all five as marked below:

Needles 1 and 2 are holding stitches picked up from the edge of the strip knit just before the current one. I have to use two because one needle isn't long enough to hold all of the stitches.

Needle 3 is holding stitches picked up along the edge of the strip on the other side. I knit those up as I make progress on the current strip. Since the needle isn't long enough to pick up all of them at once, I just pick up a section and then pick up more as I go.

And needles 4 and 5 are what I'm using to knit the current strip.

Once I finish this strip, I'll only have the cuffs to do. I'm thinking about doing them two at a time with a circular needle. It'll be a 1x1 rib.

I'm still really enjoying working with this yarn. I'll miss working on these socks when they're done.