Since in the knitting blogiverse Wednesdays are for updating your WIPs (works in progress), I thought I’d share with you my progress in the Sock Madness competition.

Last Wednesday during knit group, I finished grafting the afterthought heel of the first-round socks:

The pattern is called Mertini and is based on a quilt pattern called Drunkard’s Path. Unfortunately, although I loved the brilliance of the Koigu yarn I chose to knit them in, it had enough variegation in it that it obscured the designer’s clever pattern. If you squint and tilt your head a bit, you can get an idea of the detail here:

And with the completion of the socks, I advanced to the second round.

Saturday the new pattern arrived in my inbox. Hints were sent ahead of time, and we’d pretty much all guessed that the second round was going to involve colorwork. I’ve never worked with more than one yarn at the same time, so the prospect was a little scary. The pattern, called Tokena, is based on Maori baskets, and aside from working with two yarns in every row, seems relatively straightforward. I feel confident that I’ll be able to handle the challenge (which is good, since tackling colorwork was a knitting goal for 2009).

I found two yarns that I hoped would work well enough together and wound them up before leaving the house for the morning.

While I was out at the Cherry Blossom Festival, I had the chance to work on the cuff a bit:

I knit until I had to add the second color and then paused to ask for some help:

Eleanor took my knitting and opined, “Do one thing every day that scares you.”

Check. Let’s attach that second ball of yarn:

That was Sunday evening’s progress, just before I tried it on to find that I could no longer get it over my heel. Later that night it looked like two piles of yarn again.

Eleanor also said, “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Monday, I flipped the knitting inside out, recalling the suggestion that it’s easier to knit Fair Isle patterns looser in the round if you keep all your floats on the outside.

The knitting is almost always faster the second time around. I have tried the leg of the sock on several times (I’ve just turned the heel of the first sock) — and this method seems to be working for me. I’ll share more photos as I progress.