A Peek At My Weekend…
This photo captures much of the weekend. Perhaps I should have stuck a few of our remote controls and our box of season 5 of X-Files in there too…
If you’ve been around this blog for too long I am guessing you are not too surprised at the number of Scandinavian knitting books in that stack. You had to have seen it coming, despite the lack of much colorwork in my FOs.
Much of that stack of books does not belong to me. There are two great volumes in there - Chatterton and Lind - that Julia kindly sent my way over a year ago after a fantastic score at an estate sale. The top book and the bottom three I have borrowed from Knitter Sansablog for further inspiration. The rest are my own, with one very new acquisition.
I just picked up Knitting in the Old Way. I have borrowed it from the library and from Ashley several times. I think combined I’ve borrowed it 5 times or so. And while I was kindly offered the opportunity to do so again, I decided at this point it is time to have it in my fiber arts library. As DH said, “sometimes the affair has gone on long enough and it is time to get married.” I suspect it is one of those books that will achieve a lovely worn in look like the Walker books. It is packed to overflowing with great insight and wisdom on sweater construction and it is well organized to make it an easy reference.
The socks in the pile there that you have seen a lot of yet not seen a lot of progress? They need frogged (yes, again) back to the completion of the heel. That was the knitting pattern that I discovered won’t work easily in the round. I think I need to form a new habit - putting in lifelines at key points when I’m designing a sock so that I can more easily rip back to a location. For toe-up like these I should have been putting in a line at the completion of the toe, the start of the heel, and the end of the heel.
I’ve got about 18 - 20 rows of lace knit after the heel that needs to come out, but it is complex enough that I can’t really place a lifeline after the fact. The elasticity of the yarn also makes it difficult to frog and pick live stitches back up. I haven’t quite steeled up the courage or gathered the patience I need to do that task yet. I suspected I was at such a point on Saturday and had it definitely confirmed on Monday at SnB. I also need to do some new stitch calculation and hope that it won’t require frogging all the way back to the toe. You would think I’d be ready. I know I’m ready to have these socks done. I love the final look, but they have been a real headache in the design phase and I just want them off the needles and onto my feet!
Any positive prayer or juju sent my way will be gladly accepted :-)
