Wow, gotta love spring. The (former) Valley of No Weather is making up for it this year.
This Monday past the weather was so warm that when I got home from work, my awesome, wonderful boyfriend built us a fire, and we sat on the back porch playing music.
Okay, it wasn't a raging bonfire ... not for lack of skill or trying. There was no kindling, and what wood there was was soaked. Just that previous weekend we'd had bunches of snow (you can still see the remnants of it in the yard behind the fire bowl). But it was a fire, all the same, and I loved it.
Today the fire bowl looks like this.
We're up to about 8" or 10" and counting. This is the kind of snow a Poo could get lost in. Run, Poo, run! It was too deep for him to walk through - the only way he could navigate around was to leap through it like a bounding deer.
Since staying in and staying warm was the only thing to do these past two days, I've been working on the March sock project. I started a sock from the Cat Bordhi book, "New Pathways For Sock Knitters." (Wonderful, wonderful book! Can't recommend it enough!).
The sock was originally going along like this.
But there was something wrong (and it was operator error, nothing wrong with the pattern). I had buggered up the cuff, somehow managing to knit half of it with one side out, and then reversed it and began knitting it with the other side public. Initially, when I thought I'd followed the pattern correctly, I thought it was done that way on purpose specifically so you could fold it down and make the cuff. (One of the pictures in the book for this pattern has the top turned down, the other doesn't - so obviously it's optional). But I still just had a funny feeling I'd done something wrong.
Secondly, I didn't like the cuff. If I was going to fold down a cuff, I'd want it to be bigger than that.
Thirdly, I hadn't done a gauge swatch - I know, I know! But it wasn't laziness, it was just a case of mistaken identity. I thought this was the same exact yarn I'd used for the Christmas socks, with which I got 8 spi with a size 1 needle. This pattern called for 8 spi, so I figured I was safe not doing another gauge swatch.
A considerable way down the leg I thought I'd double check, and I was getting 9 spi. I went back and checked my notes, and this wasn't the same yarn I'd used for the Christmas socks. I immediately switched to a size 2, thinking I could still finish the sock (the part of the leg done so far had fit anyway, even with the wrong size needle). But this, too, kept bugging me.
And last, but certainly not least, I was pretty sure I was buggering up the design pattern. It's a deceptively simple knit / slip / knit / slip pattern. "Deceptively" being the key word, because I'd been watching a lot of TV and movies while knitting this, and although I never caught myself in the act, I had a nagging feeling that I'd messed up the pattern quite a few times. My suspicions were corroborated by the fact that the pattern just wasn't looking right, somehow, although I couldn't put my finger on it.
I considered ripping back many times over the last 24 hours, but I kept telling myself, "Don't be such a ninny. It's a sock, for goodness sake. One sock, of a potential pair. No one's ever even going to see the cuff or the pattern on the foot anyway.
But I couldn't take it. It was bugging me. So this morning I reduced my half done sock back to this.
(just not quite as blurry)
Yep. I ripped the whole thing out, and started over. And boy am I glad I did. The second version is turning out so much better than the first! This is one time (at least) that ripping out all that work and starting over was definitely worth it.
By tomorrow I should have a picture of the new sock, take two. (There wasn't really enough done yet to bother tonight; okay, I lie, I've already got my pictures edited and ready to upload, and was too lazy to go take another one).
Well, that's all for today ... back to knitting!
This Monday past the weather was so warm that when I got home from work, my awesome, wonderful boyfriend built us a fire, and we sat on the back porch playing music.
Okay, it wasn't a raging bonfire ... not for lack of skill or trying. There was no kindling, and what wood there was was soaked. Just that previous weekend we'd had bunches of snow (you can still see the remnants of it in the yard behind the fire bowl). But it was a fire, all the same, and I loved it.
Today the fire bowl looks like this.
We're up to about 8" or 10" and counting. This is the kind of snow a Poo could get lost in. Run, Poo, run! It was too deep for him to walk through - the only way he could navigate around was to leap through it like a bounding deer.
Since staying in and staying warm was the only thing to do these past two days, I've been working on the March sock project. I started a sock from the Cat Bordhi book, "New Pathways For Sock Knitters." (Wonderful, wonderful book! Can't recommend it enough!).
The sock was originally going along like this.
But there was something wrong (and it was operator error, nothing wrong with the pattern). I had buggered up the cuff, somehow managing to knit half of it with one side out, and then reversed it and began knitting it with the other side public. Initially, when I thought I'd followed the pattern correctly, I thought it was done that way on purpose specifically so you could fold it down and make the cuff. (One of the pictures in the book for this pattern has the top turned down, the other doesn't - so obviously it's optional). But I still just had a funny feeling I'd done something wrong.
Secondly, I didn't like the cuff. If I was going to fold down a cuff, I'd want it to be bigger than that.
Thirdly, I hadn't done a gauge swatch - I know, I know! But it wasn't laziness, it was just a case of mistaken identity. I thought this was the same exact yarn I'd used for the Christmas socks, with which I got 8 spi with a size 1 needle. This pattern called for 8 spi, so I figured I was safe not doing another gauge swatch.
A considerable way down the leg I thought I'd double check, and I was getting 9 spi. I went back and checked my notes, and this wasn't the same yarn I'd used for the Christmas socks. I immediately switched to a size 2, thinking I could still finish the sock (the part of the leg done so far had fit anyway, even with the wrong size needle). But this, too, kept bugging me.
And last, but certainly not least, I was pretty sure I was buggering up the design pattern. It's a deceptively simple knit / slip / knit / slip pattern. "Deceptively" being the key word, because I'd been watching a lot of TV and movies while knitting this, and although I never caught myself in the act, I had a nagging feeling that I'd messed up the pattern quite a few times. My suspicions were corroborated by the fact that the pattern just wasn't looking right, somehow, although I couldn't put my finger on it.
I considered ripping back many times over the last 24 hours, but I kept telling myself, "Don't be such a ninny. It's a sock, for goodness sake. One sock, of a potential pair. No one's ever even going to see the cuff or the pattern on the foot anyway.
But I couldn't take it. It was bugging me. So this morning I reduced my half done sock back to this.
(just not quite as blurry)
Yep. I ripped the whole thing out, and started over. And boy am I glad I did. The second version is turning out so much better than the first! This is one time (at least) that ripping out all that work and starting over was definitely worth it.
By tomorrow I should have a picture of the new sock, take two. (There wasn't really enough done yet to bother tonight; okay, I lie, I've already got my pictures edited and ready to upload, and was too lazy to go take another one).
Well, that's all for today ... back to knitting!
No comments:
Post a Comment