Do not attempt to knit the heel of a sock after 9pm at night. Especially if the last time you knit (the first time you knit) a short-row heel was oh, a year ago. Especially if you are trying to *relax*. You may end up with a scene like this:
I threw it across the room. And it’s going to stay there. For awhile. The pattern, too. PunishED!
In addition, (yes, that’s right, more than one accomplishment here today), I completed 21 miles of cross country skiing in two days. Does it rain at 8,000 feet in the middle of February? It can, and it did, on Saturday during my 11.5 mile ski to Glacier Point in Yosemite. It did snow overnight and I got what I wished for. How do I choose which pictures to represent this experience?
In some strange wonder of nature, this scene was only visible for about 45 minutes. Afterwards, it was completely clouded over. All that could be seen was gray without even a hint of the mountains. I was hoping for a money shot like this or better, but the weather wouldn’t allow it. Maybe next time? For now, it’s back to nursing the sore muscles in the arches of my feet and my gluteus maximus.
One unfinished sock that of which the toe must still be taken out and re-knit:
And some pictures of my first cross country skiing experience from Bear Valley, CA on Saturday. Shazam! do my thighs hurt from all that “snowplowing” and hillclimbing! I guess I need to keep excercising!
Next up? Telemark skiing lessons Saturday, another first.
1. Example 1 (turn down volume if you don’t want to hear the cheesy music)
2. I’ll be lucky if I look like this: Example 2
3. Wikipedia: Telemark Skiing
Two sock heels. Check!
I know you can’t get enough of the redwoods, so here are some more.
Don’t panic. Yes, I ripped out the heel all the way from about half of the decreases. It was coming out crooked and uneven and funny-looking. But it was part of a class and I had assistance from Jesse the instructor, so I wasn’t afraid. I re-turned (is that a word?) the heel, got through the confusing part of starting the decreases on the magic loop, and am well on my way again. I’m at about the same point on the second sock, so I think I should knit up to the decreases on that sock, too. Hopefully going through it the second time and making notes was enough for me to remember how to do it. I wouldn’t normally knit two socks at the same time, but I had an extra size 3 from the KnitPicks manufacturing defect. The cable hasn’t fallen out yet, so even though it’s not particularly smooth, I’m still using it.
I really thought I was going to be able to post a finished second sock to complete my pretty purple peds, but we had some words over the short row heel and are currently not on speaking terms. In due time. I *really* thought that was going to be my very first completed pair.
By the way, why does the isight on this $3000 store Mac that I will never be able to afford take pictures backwards? And why do they make appointments if they’re going to be 45 minutes behind??? I was early, too.
I’m learning the magic loop method of knitting. It’s a way to knit a circle with only one long circular needle. I wanted to learn this method because when I knit a sock with two circular needles, 4 needles is a lot to have dangling around a sock. So I thought I’d give it a try. I won’t discuss how I left a 2 hour class with only 56 cast-on stitches. But look! Progress! Now let’s see if they’ll let me on the plane with it (that’s right, I’m going somewhere this weekend). I didn’t have to report to jury duty yesterday to see if they’d let me in the courtroom wielding the needles. I thought that would be a fun experiment. Anyone ever successfully knit during jury duty? That would be one way to combat the waste-o time-o listening to everyone’s excuses. I did that once before. “I’m sorry, sir, just because you’ve been in a car accident, doesn’t mean you are prejudiced against a car accident case.” Actually, they’re calling it “jury service” now. I wonder why the change.
Do you see that big ‘ol knot right there next to the needle? It just snuck right up on me. There I was, just knitting along and then BAM! a knot. Now I guess I have to knit back a row so I can cut it off, rejoin the yarn, and weave it in. I don’t know how securely cotton yarn will stay weaved-in, especially in a stretchy sock. I’ll have to do an extra-good job I suppose. Any suggestions? Is this common with Cascade Fixation yarn?
Well, it didn’t REALLY look like this, it just looked like this after I took it out of the baskets to organize it. Can anyone get those stupid Denise needle cables back in the box correctly? They need some kind of template or something to tell you which cable goes where. But what really concerned me was this:
I tried my best to untangle it
But anyone who knows me may (or may not) know that I have not the patience for yarn-untangling. Why then get myself into this situation? I do not know. It’s like I have these self-destructing behaviors on purpose. Any guesses where it ultimately ended up? The circular file (and I don’t mean for circular needles). I’m blaming it on the synthetic yarn.
Thank you BagSmith!
Here’s a picture of one finished purple ankle sock, knitted in Koigu Kersti 100% wool:
So you knit the sock up to where you want to start the heel, about even with yer anklebone. Then you knit in a row of waste yarn, move back to the beginning of the row and knit it again, this time back with the main color.
Since I knit enough length, I’m able to push it back enough so I’m not stepping on it. The yarn is pretty squishy, too, so I can’t really feel it anyway.
Overall, it’s a fine sock. I just don’t think I’m going to knit one to match with the same heel. Maybe I’ll rip it out back to the heel and reknit a short row heel since I’ve tried it on the purple sock. The top is also a little loose, maybe I should have knit some 1×1 rib for a bit more stretch. The yarn isn’t particularly high quality though, so I don’t think it will tolerate much abuse. And yes, now I have 3 finished, single socks without mates. My husband keeps reminding me I need to knit matching socks for them to be useful. I’m just trying to master new techniques to figure out what I like best!
