I'm loving the bamboo needles - the wool, mostly, stays on, except maybe for the last stitches, and that's easily dealt with,and five needles are a slight pain to handle, but other things make up for that, including that I can try the sock on - it's not much more than a toe cozy now, but it *fits*.
I also spent a little time last night playing with worsted and size 5 needles playing with knitting and purling, creating a 2x3 check. I changed my way of purling to match the change in knitting, and I've stopped all twisting - I know twisting is not bad and sometimes desirable, but I'd rather it be a choice.
On the other hand, the short rows for the toes are - well. I'm okay with the initial slipping and wrapping, and I'm fine with *knitting* the wrapped stitches when that is called for, but purling them is not working. I've dropped stitches that I had a hard time recovering. In fact, I have a nice little hole on one side of the toe of the sock I'm knitting now, which I'll just stitch up.
Perhaps if I wrapped all those stitches loosely, it would work better? I could play with worsted tonight and see if that helps. I've looked at non-wrapping short rows, but I want to see if I can do this before I give up. I have the heel coming up, and that's also short rows.
I also spent some time yesterday morning watching knitting videos. They were all helpful - one showed me how to handle my dpns, and the other two showed how knitting on two circulars and magic loop worked, and now that I've used dpns for a while, it all makes sense, but isn't moving the stitches back and forth on the cable a trifle - inelegant? Not that dpns are elegant, but there's less yarn movement.
Anyone have preferences? Why?
