Detrmination

I've been obsessed with this yarn. I bought it from Lone Star Arts last summer to take to Hawaii. On the plane there, I worked on fingerless gloves (the Cafe du Monde ones..I just realized I apparently didn;t blog those...). But I wanted a sock to work on while there with bright "Hawaiian" colors. I started the Monkey socks, but about four inches in, I realized I wasn't crazy about how the yarn looked with the pattern. So I frogged. Then I started at least three different socks with it while there. Playing around with simple stitch patterns out of my head since I didn't have a pattern book with me. Then on the way home I decided to go with the Monkey pattern again. Got home, was about to start the toe, was finally able to try it on (not so easy to do on the plane), and found out they were just a tad too small and too hard to get over my heel. Closed my eyes and frogged again.

So I put the yarn in time out for a while and got it out again for a simple 2x2 ribbed sock for my walking around project at Fiber Fest. Decided to do a short-row heel, which I have done before, because I liked the way it was swirling and didn't want to mess up the swirl with a gusset. Finished the heel, got about a half inch past it, tried it on again, and the heel didn't feel totally right. It felt shallow. Now, I know short row heels are shallow, as I have some, but one of my favorite pairs of socks has a SR heel and fits very nicely, so I kept on knitting, thinking it would feel better with more sock. What is that about a river in Egypt?

Decreased the toe. Got to the grafting stage. Tried on the sock for the 10th time and decided that it just didn't feel right. Ribbit, ribbit.

So I decided to try a plain stockinette sock. I've never done one. My very first socks were ribbed, not stockinette. Thing is, ribbing is more forgiving than stockinette as far as fit, and right now I am having some gauge issues. My tension has loosened up and whereas I used to be able to get 8 stitches per inch on size 2's, they now give me more like 7 stitches to the inch, which I don't think is tight enough for long-wearing socks. So I've been going down to 1's and 0's for socks, but I'm less familiar with my gauge on those needles. It's been a little frustrating. I've knit a lot of sock in the last week for not having a pair of socks in front of me. I tried 72 stitches on 0's. 72 stitches on 1's. 64 stitches on 2's just to see if I was imagining my gauge. I wasn't. These are 64 stitches on 1's and I have also ditched the SR heel. I did one on 50% of stitches. I did one on 60% of stitches. I don't know why, but I can't seem to get a SR heel that feels right, so I have relenquished control to the pooling gods and put in a heel flap and gusset that I know will fit because while the more I knit this yarn the more I like it, I am past ready for a pair of socks out of it. And I must say that this is some durable sock yarn...it has been knit and frogged more times than I can count and it just keeps coming back for more.

This morning I got up at 4:30. I've been in staying-up-way-too-late mode and went to bed at 11 last night trying to break that. So I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't sleep. Came in here to the LR, got out some of Kristina's handspun, and cast on for a cabled headband from The Knitter's Book of Yarn, a book I love. Lots of good patterns in there. This yarn is super-soft and oh so pretty and I wanted to showcase it and I wanted to wear it close to my face, but since I rarely wear thick scarves, I had a hard time deciding what to do with it and then it just came to me out of the blue...a headband.

This weekend I cast on and finished a baby gift...a 12 month sized Half Pint Hoodie. It is knit out of sport weight acrylic held double. I don't have anything against acrylic. I think it is useful and I chose it for this because it is going to a non-knitting mother of three who needs it to be very wash and wear. I don't like knitting garments out of acrylic because it doesn't block like natural fiber and it can be harder to weave in the ends since the fibers won't naturally grab onto the ones around them. But it is a very cute cardigan and now I just need to find buttons and I need to wash it and make sure all the woven in ends hold up to a washing and drying...and I hope the curl at the bottom uncurls a bit with that, too. I've had this trouble before with supposed no-curl edgings on stockinette garments and with acrylic, it can't be blocked to lay flat as easily.

I've also joined a mystery knitalong for mittens for charity. My friend Jean has developed a pattern and is hosting the knitalong here. She is still taking sign-ups if anyone wants too climb aboard. Yesterday I started two sets.