Lopsided

What happens when you start the toe decreases on a sock and discover you forgot a gusset increase back at the beginning of the foot:

I hear you. One stitch? Just decrease one extra at the toe and you'll be fine. Except I wouldn't be fine. I would lurch to one side, internally, every time I wore the sock. My family knows this about me. I used to point out a knitting error and ask for advice about whether I should rip back and fix it or just live with the error. And then I would always rip back. After a few years of that, I had only to point out an error and they would just tell me to go back and fix it. Now I don't even ask. Self-knowledge is a time-saver. It's all about fixing the things you can, and letting go of the things you can't.

See? All fixed.

Bubbly Water Socks

One of those really nice matches of yarn and pattern. I’m very pleased. And true to form, I finished them just as it’s getting too cold for summer socks. I’m a big fan of this yarn. It’s not superwash, but has done well with machine “hand washing.” There’s no added nylon, but the cotton makes for a really nice sock for cool days. The slightly marled colors are yummy, and I just might have to acquire some more.

Yarn: Yankee Dyer Yarns Yankee Breeze (50% merino, 50% cotton) in Lagoon
Needles: US 0 (2.00 mm)
Pattern: Yuka Takahashi’s Soda Water
Mods: None!

The Prodigal Sock

Everyone knows single socks disappear, leaving their mate abandoned. Even well-beloved, handknit socks are not immune. Usually the missing sock was last seen in the laundry. Such was the tale of one poor sock, which went missing some years back while I was up in the mountains. After checking under beds and such, I took the mate home philosophically. “Eaten by the dryer,” I presumed. The next time I was up, I checked the lost and found box, conveniently located on a shelf in the laundry, in case it had migrated into someone else’s laundry. No luck.

This month when I packed to come up here, gleefully adding woool socks to my bag because fall comes first to the mountains - it will be in the low 40s overnight, and yes, I am wearing wool socks - I noticed the abandoned mate in my drawer and wondered why I was hanging on to it. Well, because KD made the pair for me, and she doesn’t make many socks, so they were special.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived to find the prodigal sock laid out on the bed I would be sleeping in. “My sock! Where HAVE you been?” I inquired. No answer was forthcoming, so I was left to asssume that it was folded into a sheet or blanket which somehow escaped use for a year or two.

Thank you, fellow cabinhabitant*, for leaving it where I would find it. Now I can reunite them and wear them for many more years to come!

*Great word, Kansas-sister; I approve.

Well, I feel welcomed!

Although seriously, it’s not that cold.

Warning, Frog

If, like a former co-worker of mine, you cannot stand to see things un-knit, you should probably avert your eyes from this post.

I was using up some lovely Loft mohair lace-weight, but badly overestimated my yardage. The scarf wasn't even long enough to wrap around your neck. Pretty pattern. I liked the beads. But.

If I can tease the mohair from the beads, I might combine the yarn with some grey mohair lace and achieve something striped. But mohair is very sticky, and I think it more likely I will attack it with scissors to reclaim the beads, and move on.

Nice. Now do it again.

I really do love a knitted-on edging. Even though it takes forever, there's something about the 90-degree shift in direction that is very pleasing. I admire the different ways designers embellish the join. And I love the opportunity to brush up on my backward-knitting skills - because who wants to turn the entire thing around every 12 stitches? Here's this one:

Now I just need to do that 30 more times.

A (very) little Christmas prep

Some time ago I bought a kit to make knitted Christmas ornaments. I never intended to make most of them; yarn and pine needles just don't seem like a good mix. It was the string of "lights" that caught my fancy, and the thought that I wouldn't put them on a tree, but drape them along a mantel or balustrade. Over the weekend I found the kit in a drawer while looking for some light green fingering yarn to lend, and realized I had never even opened the kit. So here we are.

Two of what will be a dozen or two lights. I'm knitting the stem as I go along. Since I have no specific plans for the rest of the kit, I can make it as long as I want. Now there's a thought. What am I going to do with the rest of the yarn?

Also, I finally put eyes on the owls.

Merry-Go-Round

I have eight active projects on the needles. I also have a nifty re-purposed wine-shopping bag to store them in, and I literally rotate through them over the course of the day, one set of pattern-repeat rows at a time.

They range from bulky yarn on 13s to lace yarn and zeroes (the lace isn't on the zeroes, that would be silly). So far this is working to keep me knitting through this latest bout of arthritis flare-up. And everything gets worked on a little, so it seems fair to all the projects.

The orange shawl is getting the most love, because I'm nearly to the edging, and I LOVE knitted-on edging. The tricolor scarf is getting the least, because for reasons I don't completely understand, it hurts my wrist the most.