Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Frog & Toad

Ribbet.

Ribbet.

The Badcaul socks are no more. I was lovin' those suckers, too. Until I started to totally hate the fact that for some bizarre reason I couldn't (for the life of me) remember the Very Simple pattern. Something about the slipped stitches and that extra k3p3 row that was slipped in after the cabled row threw me every time. Then I made the absolutely FATAL mistake of switching from two circulars to four dpns and that was absolutely it. Trying to do a 1 and 2-stitch cable twist on dpns was the thing of absolute folly - so rip rip rip rip (ribbet, ribbet, rip-it, rip-it......get it?) the socks were frogged.

[ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: UNFORTUNATELY TODAY'S PICTURELESS BLOG IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY BLOGGER & SAFARI - safari being the macintosh webbrowser of choice, fyi - AND THEIR APPARENT INABILITY TO PLAY NICELY TOGETHER.}

That'll teach me to try & blog from home instead of right before I leave work!

Well, I would show you the sock before it was ripped - especially the back of it which was my favorite part (plain stockingknit stitch) as well as the HUGE pile of tangled yarn vomit that I got when I tried to rip out the sock. Apparently when I center-pull wound the huge skein of Mama-E yarn that I am working with, I got far too greedy and tried to make the whole skein fit when I should have broken it up into smaller balls. The yarn *did* get tangled when I wound it, but silly and stupid me I kept going - - and now I have a huge mounded mess of five smaller balls - each one having pulled from the center of it's larger parent - the whole being a Nasty Mess. Ugh. I have cast on for the socks again and am going to follow the Cable (I know, I never learn, do I?) Rib Socks by Erica Alexander from the Spring '05 Interweave issue. The cables are k3 and they only happen twice per sock, so I'm much happier with that. Plus I really am digging this ribbing - it's a k2p1 ribbing that I think will show off both the colours and the absolutely tinyness of this yarn.

For posterity and replication's sake: I've cast on 66 stitches, and am starting with size 2 needles. After 4" of sock I'll switch to 1 dpns. I'm even going to do the heel flap like they tell me to - it looks really cool, I think - ditto with the way they decrease for the toe. Even though this yarn isn't my personal favorite I might have to make these socks for myself if they turn out as nicely as I think they're going to. Hmmm....maybe that would be the perfect pattern for my Dusk sock yarn???

I was also going to show a picture of a completed and CORRECT Mason-Dixon knitted warshrag that I did in a whopping 2 hours this weekend as a respite from Clapotis, but that will also have to apparently wait.

Knitting this weekend was simply Not On - - my son is teething (we're guessing all of his canine teeth AND his back molars at the same time) which means interrupted evening knitting and serious interrupted sleep (last night he actually woke up crying - - he hasn't done that since he was about 5 or 6 months old!) so that means for a tired knitter. And in my particular institution of Higher Learning classes start this coming Monday, which means nonstop meetings and deadlines out the wazoo at the moment - so no knitting lunch breaks for me this week either! Luckily the administrators of my college have come to my rescue somewhat - tomorrow is Faculty Development Day from 8 AM until 4 PM - and that means several hours of sitting and listening to other people talk while I knit. So R never fear, there should be some good progress made on the Clapotis tomorrow! Thursday is even better - the provost's annual talk - that's TWO SOLID HOURS of sitting and knitting - I'm guessing I'll whack off a good 3-5 inches of sock during that time, what do you think? Anyone want to place a virtual bet on that one? I'm totally willing to do a before & after measurement for you.........

And last but certainly not least I had prepped and ready to go a picture of my new office/knitting room arrangement - after Fig & Plum showed a picture of her yarn stash spot (a lovely bookcase STUFFED with skeins) I decided to do a little rearraging of my own and moved a new bookcase into my room and got ready to fill one shelf with knitting books & xeroxed patterns and all the other shelves with yarn. (And nooooooooo, Peggers, I know it wouldn't have all fit in that little bookcase, but I could have put my favorite yarns out on display in the 'case & kept the rest in the XXL Ziplocs in the closet....) So that was the plan, until our cat Ella decided that the shelf below my knitting books would now be her favorite sleeping spot..... so for Emma, she of the lovely comment & Tricksy suggestion, I was going to put in a cat picture. But alas, it will have to wait until I can get Blogger & my web browser to play nicely again...........which won't be until Thursday or Friday at the latest, as I have to sit and knit all day tomorrow.

Ahhhhh.....poor Me!

:)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sorry about your sock. I saw a knitter's 'journal' at Atlantic Books. Place to tuck your samples, write down your secret sock codes, etc. Of course I thought of you and wondered if you have something like that?

Don't let my Clapotis become a drag at all!

It can be knit when you're feeling happiness & sorrow & curiosity & bitchiness & optimism & naughtiness (though you should go do something besides knit when you're feeling naughty)& loneliness & jealousy & pure creative energy. But PLEASE don't knit in any boredom!!
(((HUGS))) to the Munchkin!