Please Stop Raining! Please?

I don't think I can take another soggy, dreary, soaking-wet day. My morning commute was ridiculously bad today. It's always the days that Todd is off from work and I have to drive in that have THE worse weather. Like today; today it was pouring rain. And I absolutely HATE driving in the rain.

I'm really looking forward to egg-making tomorrow! Even if I do have to drive in the rain, I don't care. It will be early enough that traffic won't be too frustrating, especially since it's a Saturday morning. Speaking of things "Easterish," Look at this adorable pattern I saw on Ravelry this morning: Bunny Nuggets. Are these not the cutest things?? Oh and it's free! I might try my hand at knitting a few. They seem to be pretty simple to knit --- kind of like a cat-nip toy. God, I love Ravelry, seriously.

So last night I attempted to cast on socks toe-up. Oy. Back story: I made 2 pairs of socks (the first 2 pairs ever, as a matter of fact), a couple of years ago doing them toe-up. I decided after the second pair that I would try doing it the other way, cuff-down. And I've knit about 4 pairs of socks this way in the last 6 months or so; three of those pairs in the last 2 months. Anyway, I couldn't remember why I decided to start knitting socks cuff-down.

Now I do.

Sweet Jesus, that toe cast-on is a nightmare. I've seen a couple of different cast-on methods and none of them are very intuitive or easy to maneuver. I tried one that I hadn't seen before, where you cast-on 12 stitches, knit across them, and then you pick up 12 stitches from the back so that you have 24 stitches on two needles that are parallel to each other. Then you start increasing every other row by doing a KFB 2 stitches from every end. Yeah, I don't recommend doing it this way. Picking up those 12 stitches punched me in my soul. I tried it 3 times. And not only is it hard, but I don't like the way it looks either. I've heard of something called "Judy's Magic Cast-On," which is supposed to make this toe-up cast on much easier. So tonight I am going to try it again.

Why am I even bothering to do toe-up socks again when knitting them cuff-down is infinitely easier?

This yarn.

I bought that yarn back in September and it's been sitting in my yarn-storage cubby ever since. It stares at me longingly. Sometimes, at night, I can hear it whispering my name....

I thought I could maybe cheat and just knit it cuff-down, starting with the outside of the ball, instead of pulling from the center. But I don't have enough sock-knitting experience to be able to gauge how much yarn I have to knit the leg before I have to start the foot. I thought there might be a picture of the finished product somewhere on line, so I could figure it out that way. Nope. And with this yarn, you really want to use every lovely inch of it. So toe up it is. Sigh.

The sock I cast-on last night was with some random sock yarn I got really cheap from etsy. I didn't want to test the cast-on process with the real thing, so-to-speak. I hope I get a least a little comfortable with the cast-on. I really want to make these socks. If, for no other reason, to stop the yarn cakes from their distressing and inconsolable weeping in the cubby. They're starting to upset the other yarns....