I love Magic Loop ..... so far

I just started the second pair of socks... these ones are being made via the Magic Loop method.. so far so good. I'm enjoying the experience so far. My friend Aaron taught me how to knit using this method last week at the weekly knit gathering. I have to admit that I was mildly intimidated by the idea of doing this. Apparently I am in the gifted class when it comes to this method. I had already casted on the required number of stitches before arriving at knitting group and had already even pulled the cable connecting the needle ends so that the number of stitches on each end was the same so there really wasn't much for Aaron to show me. Instead he got me started on the actual knitting part and showed me how to move the stitches so that they are ready to be knitted once I emptied an end of the needle.

In the week since though I have already gotten the first 1.5 inches of ribbing done and moved on to the actual pattern. So far it looks great but it has been quite challenging already. As Aaron would say it already has a design element since I somehow had an extra stitch after doing one of the pattern rows and I decided to just wing it and hope for the best after counting the stitches that I should have had on the needles. I'm excited to show everyone my progress and get confirmation that I did one of the pattern rows correctly since it had an instruction that I didn't exactly understand. It looks correct but I'd rather check before I go too much further and bring it to California with us for a few days.

Oh yeah did I mention that we are going to California for a few days???? I didn't... well we had no clue that we were going till Saturday when Lee's brother called and made the plans for us to come out and visit with him and Lee's mother. It came up very suddenly via Lee's SIL wanting us to come out and visit with his mom and for the girls to finally meet their Grandma Ringen. We didn't expect the trip to come together so quickly. This will be Anna and Lily's first airplane trip going anywhere. I am nervous about it and have been working hard to get everything together that we will need for the trip. Thankfully my internet and in real life friends have been great about giving me advice and helping me relax about the trip itself so that I can enjoy the trip.