Can I finish these by Saturday morning?

I hope so! They are a belated Christmas gift for a friend who was overseas during the holidays. Like a good friend, she gave me her gift before she left, the Winter Knits Kit. (awesome, by the way - I should do a quick review of it on here sometime.) I, on the other hand, was not so prepared before the holidays, and have to finish these socks by the time I see her on Saturday.

In other news, I got some exciting mail yesterday:

Stitches confirmation and class homework! One month to go - I’m excited! Hopefully the class I’m taking (Norwegian Knitting) will be worthwhile. The homework for the class is extremely simple, but also kind of unclear:

“Part 1: With darker colored yarn and 4mm (US 6) 16″ circular needle, work back and forth as follows (do not join in the round). CO 76 stitches. [Knit rows 1-8 as instructed]”

Fairly straightforward, right? Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t EVER knit on 16″ circular needles! I don’t own a 16″ circular, and really see no need to use one. I’d use DPNs for anything that small in the round. The instructions say to work back and forth. So, theoretically I could use any length circular needle (or even straights) for the homework. But, they don’t say if we’ll be joining in the round later on during the class. My guess is that we might be doing some knitting in the round, since oftentimes colorwork is done in the round. And, 76 stitches could easily fit on a 16″ needle in the round at a gauge of about 4.5-5 st/inch or less. So, do I need to have a 16″ circular needle for this class or not? I’d much rather not purchase a 16″ circular just for this class, since I probably won’t ever use it again. What do you think?