Invercargill is a town located in Southland, New Zealand, hence the project name.

I was sitting here with my DPNs wondering why I was torturing myself by trying to knit a circle with straight needles, when it occurred to me - because this is the cheapest way. One set of DPNs costs far less then multiple lengths of circular needles. Plus, I think sometimes I must like doing things the most difficult way possible. Sick.

I think I figured out my problem. I am trying to knit these on size 1 needles. Who let me buy size 1 DPNs?! Bad idea. Now I have to buy size 2.5 or 3 needles, which is the correct gauge. Sigh.

New knitting needles bought. They work much better. Now I just need to remember how to knit in the round. Oh, yes. And I hate P1, K1 ribbing. Bah.

Frogged and restarted again. Have I mentioned how much I hate k1p1 ribbing? ‘Cause I do.

These socks are sad. I mean, I’m going to love them when they are done, but they have all sorts of weird gnarly things going on with them. Like, a dropped stitch where there is no place to pick up a dropped stitch; a couple of purls where it should be knitted; little bits of pilled things which makes no sense as this is new yarn; and a weird gappy bit in my stockinette that is just random.

Oh my goodness. I finally finished sock number one! I’m so much more experienced than I was when I started knitting these a year and a half ago. The kitchener stitch was a breeze, and the only problem I ran into is that I didn’t follow the instructions to start decreasing in every row, so my socks are a wee bit pointy at the toes. I’m going to try and get the other sock knit tomorrow (Christmas Eve) and give these to my father as a present on Christmas Day.

Naturally, getting the socks done on time didn’t happen, but they are coming along very nicely. I have gotten the stripes to match (which is very important to me) and the knitting is going reasonable fast. I’m nearing the heel. The best part is that I’m so pleased with how the first sock turned out, that I’ve gone back to calling these my Traveling to Southland socks, instead of the sad-panda name of FrankenSocks. Hee. Yey!

I got to the heel in like record time. And then discovered, after knitting the heel flap, that I had done it WAY tighter than the heel flap on my first heel. That means it requires frogging. I am so not in the mood. Back in the bag it went for a nice little time-out.