There are lots of reasons why knitting is fab, one of them is that it is so portable. All you need is a ball of yarn and some needles and off you go!
However, like everything, there is always something more you need. And last night it was the pattern and a tape measure. I left both at the studio and while I do have tape measures at my home they weren’t on the sofa or the coffee table, so I couldn’t measure my sock.

I am used to the pattern now so I can read the stitches to see where I am and I didn’t really need the pattern. It is good to have it near to double check I am doing the pattern correctly but it’s not essential therefore last night I had to use my memory and read the stitches to carry on knitting.

I then realised I also didn’t put the tape measure back into my kit bag and so I had to guess how much I’ve knitted. I am at the part in the pattern where you knit to get the foot length. This is the bit that you make unique to the foot size you are knitting for. I use the UK size 4-5 for the length in all my patterns, 14 or 15cm. If you want the foot size to be different from this then this is where you do that. I use about one cm as a basic guide to the different foot sizes, for example if you wanted a UK size 6 then knit 15 or 16cm.

Anyway, so what do you do if you haven’t got a tape measure and you are using 15cm dpns and remember that the length has to be 14cm? You use your dpns and guess what a cm less is and hope you’ve got it near enough right….and it was!