Two Circular Items at Once on Two Circular Needles

Makin' two socks (or mittens) at the same time is a fine pirately way of keepin everythin' hard-lookin and impressive, without expendin' any more effort than necessary. Some people likes it, and some people doesn't. Some land lubbers call this two socks on two circs or other such things.
Ye need two circulars of the same size, and two balls of yarn (or a center-pull ball, and work from the outside and the inside at once).

Cast on:

Using two circular needles of the same size, cast on to each needle and join in the round as if you were starting two projects at the same time.

Note red is one round object, blue is the other round object. Grey is needle number one. Black is needle number two.

Dividing:

  1. Now decide how many stitches is half the cast-on circle, and starting in the middle of the circle, put the tip of the left needle through half the stitches on your right needle.
  2. The left needle now has its own cast-on, plus it is sharing half the stitches of the right cast-on.
  3. Withdraw the old needle from the shared stitches. The right needle now only has half of the cast-on stitches.
  4. Using the free end of the right needle and starting at the join, put half the left stitches on the former right needle. Now the needles are more like a top and bottom needle.
  5. Withdraw the old needle from the shared stitches. Each needle should now have either the top or bottom half of the cast-on stitches.


The working yarn should come out the same place on both cast-on circles.

Knitting:

Th' thing t' remember is that you switch your needle, or switch your working yarn, but never both at once.
Start at the right-most circle. Find the working yarn for that circle and move the stitches onto the hard part of the bottom needle.
Take the left point of the bottom needle, and bring it over to the working yarn.
Knit as usual.
When you get to the place where you run out of stitches, DROP THE YARN.
Pick up the next working yarn, and shift the stitches onto the point.
Knit as usual.
Huzzah! Ye've completed half a round.
Now turn the whole octopussy mess around clockwise, and do it again. You have now completed a round. Sure, it took ye twice as long, but you have twice as much knittin' to show for it, and no lonely orphaned socks.*
*Obviously, pirates with alternate limb-choices may not need such.