Nessie Expedition: Two Handed Yarn Management Part 1

Deep in the Scottish Highlands, a beast dwells in Loch Ness. Few have seen the beast, and even fewer lived to tell the tale. But here at the Lattes & Llamas Society for Knitterly Cryptid Studies, we have definitive evidence of Nessie’s existence. For the first time in history, Nessie has been found…

…on your socks! 

I’m thrilled to announce the next installment in our Cryptid Knits series: Nessie Expedition.

The Nessie Expedition is an adventure filled color-work sock MKAL that will span four action packed weeks! Are you brave enough face the dangerous (and adorable) Loch Ness Monster in her native sock habitat? Do you have the fortitude to manage your yarn floats over two rich, sparkling, fair isles socks and finally prove to your disbelieving friends and family that Nessie is real and living in your shoes? If you have what it takes, read on, fair explorers, because your ship, the U.S.S. Sock Knitter leaves in just two weeks!

The MKAL ships off on Friday, March 30, 2018. We’ll dock each Friday, and take shore leave long enough to download the new clue. Your ship itinerary is as follows:

3/16/2018-Expedition Kits release in the L&L store. Here you’ll get everything you need for your adventure. A free tutorial is posted (at the bottom of this post) to get you started on your gauge swatch, and, if you’re brave enough, to begin tackling 2-handed yarn management for fair isles knitting. Don’t forget to download your Nessie-Project Sheet

3/23/2018-The last day to order a Nessie Expedition kit that is guaranteed to ship before the start of the MKAL. A free tutorial will be posted on the Lattes & Llamas blog with your second lesson in 2-handed yarn management.

3/30/2018-We’re shipping off! The first clue will be released on Ravelry.

4/6/2018-Our first port of call: Clue 2 will be released on Ravelry.

4/13/2018-Shore leave to resupply and cast on the second sock: Clue 3 will be released on Ravelry.

4/20/2018-Anchors down in Loch Ness: The final clue, Clue 4, will be released on Ravelry.

As with any expedition, you’ll need supplies and preparation. We designed yarn just for the occasion. The Nessie Expedition Kit comes with two identical 50g balls of decadent, sparkling, gradient yarn (one for each sock) and one 100g ball of Vacation Yarn in the color “Baskerville.” Additionally, you’ll get a themed project bag, hand made beaded stitch markers designed to match your yarn, and the Nessie Expedition Pattern.

If you choose not to purchase the kit, the pattern will be available by itself for $6 on Ravelry, and you’ll need two sharply contrasting colors of fingering weight yarn. We will not be offering the specialty gradient yarn, bag, or stitch markers for sale outside of the kits.

Nessie Expedition socks are an intermediate knit. We recommend that you have experience making color-work socks. The charts and construction are not difficult, but we don’t recommend these as a first color-work project. The socks are worked cuff down, in fair isles. The two socks are a perfectly coordinating pair, but they feature different charts and Nessie sightings. Clue 1-2 will make sock one and Clues 3-4 will make sock two. I don’t feel like it’s possible for me to oversell this design. Jac designed the charts and they are absolutely some of her best work. They are on par with Shersocks. If you liked Hunting Sasquatch, you’ll LOVE Nessie Expedition.

To get you started, let’s talk about swatching and yarn management for fair isles sock knitting. I’m obsessed with two color yarn management and neat floats. There is something so inherently satisfying about well managed floats. I swear, it makes me feel like a sorcerer to get my floats just right. Anyhow, you don’t have to use this technique. BUT, if you are an experienced sock knitter that is ready to challenge yourself to a new technique, this one really pays off. I’ve split the tutorial into two lessons. The first step is teaching yourself to knit ambidextrously. You’ve probably heard of the two predominant knitting styles: Continental and English. For this technique, you’ll want to learn to knit in the Continental style, holding your yarn in your left hand, and in the English style, holding your yarn in your right hand. The following video will introduce you to each style. Most likely, you are using one of them all the time now. Use the video to learn the style that you aren’t currently knitting with, and practice knitting stripes up a swatch, alternating rows of Continental and English styles until you feel comfortable with both. Then move on to the gauge swatch video, which is your first lesson in combining the two knitting styles in one row.

Written instructions for your gauge swatch are available in the Nessie Expedition Project sheet, which you can download by clicking HERE. In the video below, you’ll see how to apply knitting in the Continental style with one hand and the English style in the other hand to your fair isles knitting. Next week, we’ll tackle how managing your yarn in this way will help you to have perfect floats, every time, even over very long stretches of just one color.

~Megan-Anne

“Many a man has been hanged on less evidence than there is for the Loch Ness Monster.”-G.K. Chesterton