Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time Socks

I'm expecting Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes to arrive on Friday, the 23rd of April. Currently, my toe-up socks are on a temporary hold until this book arrives. Why?

Well, there's more to socks than meets the eye! Knitting can be as simple as two sticks and some string, or as complex as yarn weight, needle size, knitting tension, and knitting technique.

The gauge swatch for the toe-up socks I'm planning to knit with fingering weight yarn, on US #0 needles, shows that I'm knitting 10 sts per inch. That's pretty tight.

The thing is, I knitted the gauge swatch on a set of five, eight inch, US #0 double-pointed metal (PHILDAR brand) needles (2mm) that were given to me. If I decide to use dpns to knit these toe-up socks, I'll want a second set of dpns, so I can knit both socks at more or less the same time. However, 8 inch dpns are much too long! The LYS has 5 inch dpns, and those are too short. The chain stores that have knitting supplies have 7 inch dpns, and those are still too long.

So the question is, since I'll have to purchase some needles anyway, why not wait a couple of days to see if the technique of knitting two socks on one long circular needle is within my technical ability, or not? If I think I can do it, I'll buy one 40 inch US#0 circular needle, and knit both socks on it. If the technique looks too complex for me, then I'll buy two sets of five needles, six inches long, and do them on dpns.

I kind of like the idea of being able to knit both socks at the same time on one circular needle. I've already been introduced to the Magic Loop technique, when I took the sock class. That was just knitting one sock on one circular needle. I'm thinking it shouldn't be too difficult to take that experience and translate it into doing two socks on one circular needle.

Anyway, that's where I'm at today. I don't have anything on needles at this point. Knitting teaches patience, and so does waiting for a new book to arrive in the mail.