Toe-up Socks

Design
While on my Yarn Trek, I came across a book for knitting toe up socks: Socks a la carte 2: Toes Up!  As much as I love to knit socks - and I even have my own master pattern - I have never done a toe-up sock.  Probably out of fear of the unknown...  Using the figure-eight cast on, I attempted (and failed) to start a toe-up sock a good 20 times until I gave up that day.  Even with the pictures, it just wasn't working.  Thanks to the group Sock Madness on Ravelry.com, I was able to get a few hints on how to do this cast on and make it look good.  Here's what I learned:

1. When doing the cast on, include the slip-knot stitch as your cast on stitch.
2. Knit a few rows - I knit a total of 2 - on each needle once you've done the cast on in order to make sure that the cast on was good.  It also creates a good-looking toe point if you're using variegated yarn.
3. The book tells you to distribute the stitches a certain way for a lot of the different toe patterns.  For the double-up toe, slip 4 of the sts of one of the needles onto a third needle and then you should have the sts distributed. You'll have to knit the sts on what would be needle 3 (N3) in order to get to the beginning of the round.  Then and only then will it work.

Knitting Madness
Yarn Trek took a total of four days.  On days three and four, Peanut and I visited four more shops.

• Grafton Yarn Store:  http://www.graftonyarnstore.com/  The shop is absolutely awesome!  It's in an older building and set up very well.  I got more baby yarn, picturing a back to school/fall colors jumper.  The owner was very friendly and invited me to join her Ravelry group to follow sales, etc. 
• Main St. Yarn Shop:  http://www.mainstyarnshop.com/ This took a while for us to get to from our hometown, but it was definitely worth it.  I got some good business start-up advice from the owner, who was actually willing to talk to me about owning a yarn shop.  I also picked out some yarn that I plan on using to design a few fall items for my etsy shop.
• Xpressions Beads & Yarn:  http://www.xpressionsbeadsnyarn.com/ This was a little bit of a smaller shop, but it is equally devoted to yarn and beads.  You can purchase items on their website, or email the owner and put in a special order.
• Fiddlehead Yarns:  http://www.fiddleheadyarns.com/  Another quaint shop, but it is much larger than it appears.  There is even another room off of the main shop, which I assumed was for classes and/or private knitting. 

Coming Soon
Handmade knitting needles!