Making Progress, or: Chucking the Hard for the Easy

You will recall my little rant about socks in my last post. Well, a few weeks ago I started my second pair of socks (the Pomatomus socks from Knitty, designed by the very talented Cookie A.). Yes, they are much more difficult than the Monkey socks were, and no, they don't look nearly as fine as the ones on the website. (I'm blaming it on the fact that I'm using cheaper yarn.) Here is what I have after sweating it out for weeks with some dull bamboo needles:


You really need some sharp points with this pattern, since every other stitch is knit through the back loop and if it's right after a yarn-over, it can be pretty rough! I made it halfway down the leg and ordered some metal needles from KnitPicks since I've heard such good things about their smaller needles. (Incidentally, I have their entire Options set and I love it--it's all I use to knit with.)

So, even though I hate to leave things unfinished (even temporarily), these socks were driving me nuts and giving me huge blisters so I cast on for the new baby blanket for my sis the other day. Progress after 3 days:


Ahhh...so satisfying to knit something so quick and easy! I am making the Big Bad Baby Blanket from the Stitch 'n' Bitch book. I am using gray and blue yarn from KnitPicks, held together throughout. Half of each row is a knit stitch, the other half is purl stitch. Which brings up the topic:

I have been hearing / reading a lot lately about people having difficulty doing purl stitch. I was teaching my 7 year old sister how to purl the other day, and my mother made a comment that she had heard of people who can purl just as fast as they knit! And I often read in the notes for patterns that something is "knit in the round to reduce purling", etc. I have to say that I have never had a problem purling as fast as I knit, but now that I know I'm "supposed" to, I'm feeling rather self-conscious about it. What else have I been doing that I should be having trouble with? And does everyone else really have trouble purling, or is it just a coincidence that I have been hearing about it a lot lately?

Either way, I'm glad it's not slowing down my progress on this blanket!