Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Cliffhanger: is there ever enough sock yarn?

A nice thing about a long car trip is the potential for a lot of knitting time (assuming you're not the driver, though I know that doesn't always stop people.)  I always look forward to the 5-hour trip to Ottawa for that reason and was very excited to get a lot of work done on my cashmere-blend lace socks on the way to my cousin's wedding last weekend:


I haven't worked on these since the spring, but I remember being completely smitten with them - the combination of needles, yarn, and the stitch pattern I paired with my base sock design were just dreamy.  It was time to pick them up again and I wasn't disappointed: they are still awesome.

What I forgot to take into consideration is that the sun sets early these days.  The last couple of hours, it was too dark to knit, and so foggy outside that Certain Drivers weren't keen on the interior light being on so that Certain Passengers could finish a sock heel.

I did try though.  I dropped some stitches, messed up the short rows, and messed up generally before I gave it up as a bad job.  Then I thought about chewing my arm off.  Long car trips are so boring without knitting!

After a while I told a Certain Driver that a really good present for me would be one of those lightweight flashlights you hang around your neck and position to focus a beam of light on your knitting.  It's probably still to much interior light for night driving but I'm sure I would find many other opportunities to use it.

Anyway I did make progress on the sock as you can see.  The design: not so easy to see unless something is inside the sock to stretch it out a bit.


Better? 

And that leaves me with just one small(ish) problem:


I'm running out of yarn.  Again.

I'm sure there is something in my stash I can use to finish off this foot, but I am really hoping I can make it through to the toe before I have to switch.  Maybe then it will look Meant.  Stay tuned! With luck, I'll be able to tell you in a few days how it all came out.

Till then: have a great day with my best wishes for sneaking something crafty into it!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My suggestion: one of those adjustable mini head-lamps you can get at MEC. We used them on our camping trip on the weekend, and decided we'd been idiots not to have started using them years ago! The light can be adjusted to point down at your lap, or ahead for outhouse-finding in the dark; and the ones we got had two light levels, "blinding" and "reasonable."
You might still have to angle yourself away from the driver to avoid being a hazard on the road, but still. Those things are awesome!
K.

Marianne said...

The headlamp is a good idea, but there are small book lights that have a clip that can be placed on a seat belt strap. I have used this many times, the light can be titled so as to not interfere with the driver's vision in any way. Mine has a long flexible shaft with 2 led lights on the end, makes it very easy to adjust in anyway for safe driving (and safe knitting)