HEEL!

said I.



When I was at my daughter's house over Christmas, I hadn't brought any knitting with me (dumb thing to forget) and so I knit her a sock with her supplies. I didn't have my pattern with me and she doesn't use a pattern really, because she has knit so many socks, and because she is younger than I am (duh) and has a better memory than I do.

So I just knit along, asking her instructions from time to time, and I DIDN'T EVEN COUNT ROWS! How freeing!!! How intuitive!!!

The sock came out just fine so when I started one at home, I thought, I don't need no stinkin' instructions and off I went.


Last night after I finished the heel flap, I picked up 18 stitches along one side, knit and purled the instep stitches, and picked up 18 along the other side, split the heel flap stitches onto the two needles with the picked up stitches, and started decreasing for the gusset.  Gee, there sure are a lot of stitches, thought I.

But I knit on, thinking that I must not be remembering correctly just how many stitches I needed to work with.  

But really, this is A LOT of stitches.

This morning I searched and searched and finally found my pattern and discovered that I had not turned the heel!!!

Mystery solved. WAY too many stitches.  

And turning the heel is fun. And magic. I like turning the heel.

So I frogged many, many rows and turned the heel. I trust I will not forget again any time soon.

Et voila!  A properly turned heel.

Focus!

I finished these socks yesterday; I started them in MAY of last year. Yikes. 

They aren't even remotely identical but I knit them from a Gale's Art sock flat, which is yarn already knit up, dyed and stamped, and you unravel the flat piece of knitting as you go. I'm not sure that it would be possible to cut the yarn to get identical socks; I doubt it.The yarn is all squiggly (technical term) and a little difficult to control. I'm sure I didn't get gauge because the squiggles (technical term) wouldn't allow me to hold the yarn tightly, but then, I never really try to get gauge, so it doesn't actually matter. (Don't tell the knitting police on me!) Kitchenering the toe was really fiddly because of all the squiggles.

AND, last week I finished my Easy Folded Poncho in this purple silk. The yarn, Shibui Knits Heichi, has been discontinued, and I can't imagine why. It drapes beautifully. Shibui! Re-think this decision, please!

So now I am laser-light focussed on finishing up projects before I begin another.

Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah............

May Day Plus One

In other words, it is May 2nd.

At knit night last night, knitters discussed May Day traditions from their childhoods, but some of us didn't have any. I didn't. These traditions weren't regional at all, which is surprising. North? South? Didn't matter.

My husband arrived home earlier than I did last night, and he found flowers hanging from our front door. No tag from a florist. No note from a friend or neighbor. 

Just these pretty flowers.

This morning while he was checking out new posts on Facebook, my husband saw a photograph of what looked like our front door. It was our front door, complete with the flowers. The poster, a neighbor, wrote that she had revived a May Day tradition from her childhood by presenting flowers to a randomly chosen person. We are random! I plan on doing the same next year because it's a treat and a nice surprise.

At knit night, I almost finished these socks, and I would have if I hadn't thought that I had knitted 20 more rows than I needed for the length of the sock. So I tinked it by a few rows, tucked it back in my bag and came home. Today I discovered that I hadn't knit too many rows; I had counted from the wrong place. So I re-knit the tinked rows, decreased for the toe and kitchnered the toe. Once I soak the pair in SOAK, I will be finished with them. They are a gift for a friend who is a birder, and I think the camouflage colors are appropriate.  I admit, though, that I had no idea that this is what the yarn would look like knitted up.  Kind of an unwelcome surprise, but I guess they will be ok.  

MissBabs Hand-dyed Yarns and Fibers, Cosmic Sock Yarn

I blame my counting error on being distracted by this cute little puppy. She is our new shop dog, Blanche, and she belongs to the shop owner.  5 1/2 weeks old! She plays really hard for a few minutes then sleeps really hard. And she BARKS!!! The tiniest bark I have ever heard.  

I sometimes think it would be fun to have a puppy, but I have Baxter (and Molly) and Baxter is my challenge, although I think I have pretty much given up.

See the runner on the table? When I brought it home and put it on the table the first time, it had creases on it where it had been folded.  I didn't get to it right away, and Baxter paid no attention to it. I finally washed it and ironed it and put it back on the table.  

Baxter loves it. He plays with it, tries to hide under it.   

 I give up.  

¿Qué pasó?

See?  I'm learning Spanish!

What's happening with Knittergran?, you may ask.

Well, she can't knit and watch Breaking Bad at the same time.  She discovered this after making a few too many mistakes in her knitting.  So now that she is caught up on BB, she has been knitting.

And she should stop referring to herself in the third person.  It's just weird.  She is not royalty.

So I have been catching up on knitting!

I have finished these socks, the first ever knit on size one needles.  (Signature needles, plain vanilla pattern, and Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock Yarn, color grouse)

AND I have been working on the tricky Miss Winkle scarf:

I don't want to think about how many loops I have attached the wrong way and have had to frog.

AND I have finally, finally, with the help of several Ravelers, gotten started on the Currant Cardigan.  It has been the most difficult project I have attempted because of the new cast on and new stitches I have had to learn.  And I was reading the charts wrong because the right side rows are usually odd-numbered (I think) and the wrong side rows even-numbered (I think) and this was backwards to me, but I didn't realize it until I had done parts of a couple of rows um...backwards?  I'm not actually sure.  I was so confused.... A very experienced knitter on Ravelry helped me sort it all out. And then I frogged.

But now I am on my way, I hope.

AND I may have discovered that I am no gardener.  So far, this is the total of my crop of peppers:

Teeny, tiny.  CUTE!!!

We have had something like 16" extra inches of rain this summer, so maybe that's the problem.  I have no idea. 

It tasted great.  So there's that.

Anyway, Breaking Bad is on tonight, but I will record it and watch it later without the ads.  

Sorry, advertisers, but you break up the mood, the color, the ambiance, the sounds, the carnage, the blood, the swearing......... maybe the ads are a good thing.  

A Sock!

I finished a sock!

Now I need another one!

Magic #$%^&* Loop

Deanna, knitter extraordinaire, YarnGurl on Ravelry, invited some of us Thursday night knitters to her home over the weekend so that she could teach us the Magic Loop method of knitting two socks at once on one long circular needle. Huh? It involves the singing group ABBA and bunny ears and lots of tangle.

It is, at least for now, more difficult than it sounds. This photo shows, oh, about an hour or so of struggling to get stitches cast on correctly:

Impressive, yes?

Well, there's more.

This is the result of several more hours of struggle work. There are supposed to be two bunny ear loops, and there are three loops instead. But there ARE the beginnings of two socks.....I think.
Now this is better:
Sallyknits observed that in the time it took us to get this far, we could have knit a couple of inches of a sock; of course that would be only ONE sock and instead we have two here.

We are willing to soldier on and see what happens. With any luck and common sense, we should end up with a pair of socks.

Socks! Socks! and More Socks!

We sock-knitters are so lucky!

Rats!

My camera is broken. It's not a dead battery or anything else that I can diagnose, so I think it's really broken - or deceased.

So, I cannot show you my latest sock, knit from Berroco Sox Metallic yarn. There are sparklies in it! It's so cool! Really - just imagine the most gorgeous, sparkly, perfectly-knitted sock you have ever seen, and that's my sock. Soon there will be two of them.

As I have written about in the past, I love sparklies. I love bling - not big expensive, gaudy diamond bling, but normal bling. Sparkly things. So it just figures that I had to have this glittery yarn. And no, younger daughter, I will not wear these socks when I am in public with you.

And speaking of what I've written in the past, I was, ages ago, tagged by Calicobebop (love the name, and wouldn't caliopebebop be a good one too?) to write ten things about me. But since I had recently written seven things for another tag, I put it off. But now, with no camera, I'm forced to write. So here are three more things:

8. When I was a kid, I tried to play three instruments. My father owned a violin and a flugelhorn and believed, I guess, that his kids should be musical. We started off, as grade-schoolers, on a piano. My sister was quite good at it; my brother was too young at the time we took lessons; and I was horrible. I mean, there is separate music for each hand, AND there are the foot pedals. For our first recitals, the teacher gave my sister and me the choice of two pieces by Beethoven. (What WAS she thinking? We were KIDS.) My sister's lesson was before mine, and she (rotten little sister that she was) chose Moonlight Sonata, by far the easier piece. That meant I was stuck with Fur Elise, an impossible piece for me. I struggled with it and then finished it off by butchering it at the recital. AND I was the oldest student there. It was awful.

So, on to the violin. I tortured that poor thing, and my father must have wondered if I truly was his child. The orchestra conductor/music teacher at the high school even put me in the orchestra. I have no idea now how long I lasted in it, but it couldn't have been long. In addition to reading the music and doing the appropriate fingering, I had to pay attention to the bowing instructions. You can't just saw in any old direction (and believe me, I sawed, not bowed).

Next came the French horn. That belonged to the school and I picked it thinking that there were only three (I think it was three) thingies to push, so how hard could it be? For someone with apparently no musical talent, just as difficult as the piano and violin had been.

That was the end of that, and except for a brief unsuccessful attempt in my thirties to take lessons from the same teacher who was working (successfully) with younger daughter, I've left music-making up to others.

9. My name. My first name is spelled differently (incorrectly, in my view) and I have always hated the spelling. I read once that when parents spell a girl's name differently from the norm, it's because they think that girls will not have the same success in life that boys will, and hope that by making their daughter's name unique, she will have a better shot at success. So I imagine my parents looking at sweet little newborn me and saying, "What a loser. We'd better do something to make her stand out. I know! What about misspelling her name?!"

It's been a nuisance all my life. I have to spell it out all the time, and my last name is also spelled differently from most people's. It's the correct original Irish spelling, but lots of immigrants dropped a doubled letter when they came here. So I spell my first and last names for everything I do. I had to send my passport back when the people who processed my application misspelled my name. And there is no form for this problem; I had to fill out a name change form. Once at a drugstore, when I spelled my name correctly for the clerk, she couldn't find it (this happens all the time) and when I gave her other possible misspellings and she did find it, she asked if I wanted her to enter the name correctly in the computer system. Huh? I told her that since I tend to spell my name the way it's actually spelled, yes, I would like her to do that.

10. Hmmmmm....Can't really think of anything else. Well, I like junk food (who doesn't) but I rarely eat any since I don't like going to the grocery store and that means I don't buy much of it. I LOVE salty, crunchy stuff the best. And candy. And chocolate. And my favorite word is mellifluous, because it sounds like what it means.

And that's all she wrote.

Whew!

I finished my first pair of socks knit from Crystal Palace Mini Mochi yarn, color 108, and as I mentioned previously, I threw caution to the wind and knit the second sock without a row counter. Gasp.

It did make me a bit nervous on the foot portion - what if the sock didn't fit based on eyeballing the measurement???

But it does, and I will admit that I enjoyed the process more by NOT counting all the rows. My feet will not know the difference!

Throwing Caution to the Wind

After reading comments on a previous post about my possibly pathological (I love alliteration!)need to use a row counter when I knit socks, I just, after row 10 or 11 (I don't know which because I think I remembered to click the counter, but I'm not certain I remembered to click it) took off the counter. If hokgardner and Mary Ellen can do it, then maybe I can too. After all, as Ann in NJ reminded me, sock-knitting is supposed to be fun, right?

So even though I'm cringing a bit, and my right eyelid is twitching now, I'm going to give this eyeball-measuring technique a try.

There may not be drugs for how I'm feeling, but there's always wine.

First Mini Mochi Sock

I just finished the first sock made from Mini Mochi by Crystal Palace Yarns. The colors are every bit as gorgeous as those of Noro, and the yarn is SO much softer. If it holds up well in wearing, so long to Noro when I want color. It is single ply, 80% Merino and 20% nylon, color 108. Except for the problems I had with its being kind of splitty (and that could be my fault), I loved working with it. It's just so wonderfully soft!

This yarn is kind of hard to find, but if you can get your hands on some, give it a try.

Maybe There's a Pill for This.

No, not for the new stash.

I was in Austin last weekend and two knitting shops there had Mini Mochi, which my LYS was out of and was not getting any in until April! So I bought two colorways of that (106 and 108) and a skein of Rio de la Plata, kettle-dyed sock yarn from Uruguay. It's really soft and I'm curious to see what it will look like knitted up.

So, nope, not for the stash. Stash is a good thing. Stash is a necessity.

But you will notice a row counter in the photo; it's attached to the sock I'm working on. I know lots of sock-knitters, but only one of them, Jan, a knitting designer and teacher, uses a counter. No one else I know uses a counter, and I tried, I really tried, not to be so compulsive with this pair of socks. I should be able to eyeball the cuff and foot. I took off the counter after I turned the heel and tried to go without it. I just couldn't. I had to put it back on.

I think that maybe I'm an undiagnosed OCD knitter.

Half a Project Finished

As in, one sock knitted. But I have never had Second Sock Syndrome, so I have no worries about finishing the pair. I love wearing hand-knit socks and the weather here is suddenly warm; I do worry that spring and summer will be here and I'll have to put all my wool socks away till next fall. I know there are people who wear wool socks year around, but it's too hot here to do that.

This sock, I mean pair, is knit from Regia Design Line by Kaffe Fassett. It's the first time I have used this yarn, and it's nice enough. It is supposed to be machine-washable in cold water and machine dryable. I doubt I'll try that since I wash all my hand-knit socks together by hand anyway.

However, there is nothing exciting about the yarn and I will probably try the Crystal Palace Mini Mochi next---once my LYS gets some in. I had read about it on a Yahoo sock-knitting list serve (or whatever it's called) and when I asked about it last Thursday at knit-night, the store had just sold the last two skeins --- and I had just learned that it exists! I am told that the colors are as good as Noro's colors are, but that the yarn is nicer, very soft. The Crystal Palace sales rep. was at the store when I arrived, and he told me that the yarn is so popular that it may be April before he can get any more of it to my LYS.

So I'll finish this pair, and then pick out something that has been languishing in my stash for awhile...

Which of These Things Is Not Like the Others?

OK, so this doesn't work when there are only two things, but do you see a problem here??? Well, I do. But I didn't until I was one row away from starting the toe decreases on sock two.

Take a good look at the heels (oops, one sock is upside down):















Yup. For some reason, I switched back to the striping yarn before I turned the heel on sock #2. But I didn't notice until way, way too late, unless I wanted to frog the whole foot, which I didn't. These socks have been a series of mistakes from the very beginning of sock #1.
Mistake #1: I don't remember what it was, but I had to start over fairly soon after beginning.
Mistake #2: I picked up the OTN sock and enthusiastically started knitting. Many rows later I noticed something odd. There was a hole, and the brown striping zigged when it should have zagged. Ooops, a short row. I didn't realize I had knitted in the wrong direction. Ribbit, ribbit...
Mistake #3: The yarn is called Paca-Ped HT. The HT, of course, means "heel" and "toe." So I just used the solid brown yarn as reinforcing yarn for the heel flap. At the time, I did wonder why the reinforcement yarn was a solid color, and why it was as thick as the sock yarn. Well, I tell you, it made for one thick, sturdy heel. Duh. It was for contrasting heels and toes, just like the picture on the yarn label!!!!! Frogged it.

So on sock #2, I was destined to do something wrong. Today after I discovered my mistake, I took the pair, with #2 still OTN, to my LYS. My knitter friends there said that since the socks were not a gift, I should just leave them as is. They reminded me that The Yarn Harlot says that there are no knitting police. If there were, I think that they might take away my needles. However, in my defense, I started these months ago, just before I damaged my knee and needed surgery. Also, my thumb has been in a brace forEVER and that doesn't help any.

Some people say that the yarn tells you what to do, and I believe this yarn was telling me to just, for Dog's sake, finish and go on to something else. So I am...

Oops...

This past weekend, I went to Austin to visit my wonderful, perfect, gorgeous and funny grandchildren (and their parents). I had a great time just watching and listening to them. Yesterday we stuffed them in the hot car (it was HOT in Austin-over 100 every day, and one day, even 105!!!) to take them to lunch, and then to a new yarn shop in town. It's called Gauge and it's great! Lots of gorgeous yarns to pet and drool over. The woman there was very nice, and didn't even seem to mind 22-month old grandson "admiring" the yarn. I told older daughter that she was to stop me from buying any more yarn, but she must not have been listening, because, oops, I ended up with this:
It's Lorna's Laces hand-dyed Shepherd Sock Yarn (80% superwash wool, 20% nylon) and it is really, really soft and the colors are ...well, you can see the colors. My daughter and I each bought the same colorway, and will make socks out of it. Great minds think alike.

However, I REALLY had not intended to buy yarn, but resistance was futile. One of the best reasons to knit socks is that no matter where you are, if you see a sock yarn you love, you know how much you need. The same is not true of sweaters and other items, so you end up either buying a new pattern in order to buy the yarn, or you leave the yarn in the shop for another knitter. But you can ALWAYS buy sock yarn!

And if you live in Austin, and love this particular colorway in Lorna's Laces, too late---we beat you to it and bought it all. Sorry...

For Non-Knitters

A friend just spent a long weekend in Vermont, and came across these socks. Because she is not a knitter (in spite of my best efforts), she LOVED this place and bought two pairs of socks. I look at them and think that even though I love the colors and the fact that they are not identical, I would miss the knitting of them! So I will look at them for inspiration, but for all you non-knitting sock-lovers out there, this may be the site for you.

@#$%^& Noro Sock Yarn

Well, that's it!!! I am working on my second pair of Noro socks, and just as with the first pair, I've come across a knot. Grrrr. In the first pair, the knot was at the bottom of the leg of the first sock and that meant no chance for identical socks. But I love the colors that Noro uses in their yarns and I grabbed a new skein that caught my eye at my LYS.

I love, love, love the colors, but not the unexpected knot, this time in the gusset of the second sock. I had even unwound the skein so that both socks started with the same color and I really thought I was on my way to almost-identical socks. Nope.

No more Noro sock yarn for me.

Finished Socks!

I have just finished the socks that gave me such a hard time and they are almost identical. I don't really get too fussy about identical normally, but after the not-even-fraternal Noro socks (because of a knot in the yarn, resulting in a sudden color change), it's fun to have something come so close to working. These are made from Online Supersocke 100 Holiday-Color.

Now I'm on to another skein of Noro. :-)

Re-inventing the Wheel

This is probably something that every knitter but me knew already, but I just fixed the mistake I made on Tuesday--it has taken me three days to figure out something this simple (I shouldn't even be admitting it). I had dropped a bunch of stitches on my sock cuff, recovered all but one of them, and I just could not find that missing stitch. The more I struggled, the farther the run ran, if that makes sense.

A few minutes ago, I thought of turning the cuff inside out, and there was the dropped stitch! Just sitting there, waiting to be picked up. I got out my crochet hook, picked up the stitch, re-worked it and now I'm all set!

I realize that I could probably have asked another knitter for advice, but someone too dim-witted to think of looking at the inside of the cuff is also too dim-witted to ask for help...