Friday, December 30, 2011

Sock Talk

I should do a regular installment on Sock Talk because I still don't have the concept down.

Here is what happened on Wednesday's road trip: I packed a sock in progress. It's a very nice sock in something between sport and DK weight, so... fast.  Also soft, thanks to the merino nylon cashmere blend.  Plus, nice colours.  But it's got ribbing because I keep thinking socks have to cling.

The ribbing gets its own paragraph.  After my last socks where I did a 2x2 ribbing, I went a little berskero so I mixed up the number of purls and knits to something like K2 P3 K1 P2 etc.  It looks great, but it's impossible to follow so now I not only have to keep switching between knit and purl, I have to pay attention too.  GAH.  If I wanted to pay attention, I'd do cables or lace or something.

Note to self: mindless is only good while knitting, not designing.

Fortunately I'd got the sock on to the foot, so half of every round was plain knitting.  Yay!  I zipped along and well before it was time to come home I was onto the toe.  Around about the third round of the toe I realized something was very wrong with the plan.

The Plan
Knit to the end of the toe, then cast on the next sock and knit it.

(insert the sound of a shoe dropping)

The Wrong
I on purpose left the tool bag at home, thinking I need to be More Relaxed.  I do have scissors on the Swiss Army Knife that is my keychain, but I didn't have a darning needle for the running of scrap yarn, or extra needles to put the first sock onto so as to have enough free needles to start the second sock.


And it's such a pretty tool bag.  But I only lost about 25 minutes of knitting, so - not a complete disaster.

Complete Disaster

The next day was baking day so I pretty much ignored the sock till I'd mixed three batches of cookie dough and baked two of them.  Then I sat down and grafted the toe
without needing to look at instructions this time, thank you
between timers and ran in all the ends and then tried it on.

(other shoe dropping)

TOO SHORT.  Not in the foot, where it would be easy to fix, but in the leg, where obviously the constant ribbing angst made me convince myself to start the heel too early.  gaaaaaahhhhhh

And to add insult to injury, I wore a pair of plain knit socks yesterday that didn't bag or gape at all, having been washed a few times already.  Ribbing: I am done with you.

(as soon as I am done the second sock.)

1 comment:

Trish said...

But at least the ribbing looks pretty...
;)