Anybody remember Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In?

New England is still sitting in a grey, gloomy funk and lots of places are still under flood warnings.  It’s startling to drive up along the Merrimack or the Concord Rivers and see the trees on the banks standing with their feet and lower trunks in the water.  Hopefully the rain will slow down and give the water time to recede some.  That, and I am reaching the desperate-longing stage for some sunshine!

Last week I found a pattern on-line and all the reading and pondering I’d done about this particular subject sort of crystallized.  Something in my pea-brain flashed and yelled, “This is it!”

I was going to try a sock.

I had a ball of Opal that had been ageing in the stash and when I ran into that pattern, I figured with that yarn and my two size 2 (US) circulars, now was the time.  Except, of course, it didn’t work out quite that way. 

I dug things out late Friday afternoon to get started.  I brought my two circulars into the kitchen to briefly soak their cables in hot water - curly cables being problematic to knit with :) Got the first one done and grabbed the second only to discover that there was a needle at one end, a cable - and that was it!  I was a little upset as these were ebonies that I had never even gotten to use.  When I checked, yep, there was the second needle, still in the bag.  It had broken off at the collar :( Poop.

Of course there was the shawl to work on (more about that in a minute) but I had spent a lot of time Friday searching for a pattern I felt capable of executing and was really geared towards making socks this weekend.  Double poop.

The best and biggest craft store in the area is the A. C. Moore in Nashua - about 20 miles north of us.  There is one closer than that but it’s tiny and I didn’t think my chances of finding a size 2 circular were very good at that particular shop.  Do you have any idea what the traffic is like going north at 5:00 PM on a Friday afternoon?  Bumper to bumper at 5 mph as far as the eye can see.  Triple poop!

Never the less, I talked Myria into going out (you know how it is, right?  It could have waited until Saturday, but you’ve got the momentum going for the project now!) and we headed north.  I decided to take the back roads instead of the highway and the drive turned out to be not-so-bad.  There were a couple of slow spots, but they weren’t that slow and we eventually reached the store in reasonably good time.

They did indeed have plenty of needles of the right type and size and they also had the new Lion Brand sock yarn, 75% wool, 25% nylon, washable and dryable and $5.99 for a 100 gm ball.  So I picked up a couple of those too - purple, natch :)

Home again, I prepared my materials, sat down with my pattern and began.

This pattern requires a provisional cast-on.  You know how they always tell you to use a smooth yarn for this?  I didn’t have any that wasn’t around worsted weight and that just didn’t seem likely to work.  Finally I discovered some peach fingering yarn and used that (with a size 1 crochet hook).  That gave me the results I wanted in terms of size.  However, when I later got to the part about pulling out the cast-on, I discovered that it had turned to velcro and was clinging desperately to my sock wool like an ardent lover :( I had to cut it off - a very tense-making procedure - but it did work.  If I have to do this again, I’ll get a ball of crochet cotton to do it with :)

As of around 8:00 PM last night, this is what I had:

The first sock

The pattern can be found here.

I like the short-row toe very much as there’s no seam to annoy sensitive piggies and I found it simple to understand and relatively easy to execute.  But I didn’t get far up the foot before I was cursing the circulars.  It seemed that whichever needle I wasn’t using was always getting in the way of the needle I was using.  So I switched over to DPNs (four size 2s and one size 1) for most of the foot.  I switched back to the circulars for the heel because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep track of where I was on the DPNs.

That heel.

That !@#$%^&* heel!

I wound up knitting it over and over (that steady cussing you may have heard on Saturday night was me each time I had to frog that heel - again!) before I finally figured out what the pattern was trying to get me to do.  Then it was easy; it’s always easy once you know how!  And, of course, the circulars kept getting in the way and I couldn’t wait until the heel was finished and I could go back to the double points for the leg.

I like the legs of my socks to be ribbed - all the way up from the ankle.  And I discovered that ribbing on the DPNs was a nightmare - at least for me.  I am not the most coordinated soul on the planet and the purl stitches were killing me.  Sigh.  Back to the circulars.  The ribbing is going a lot more smoothly now and I guess I’m getting used to avoiding the non-working needle because the whole megillah seems a lot less cumbersome than it did in the beginning.

BTW, I like the Lion brand sock yarn.  It’s nice to work with and it’s a lot more economical than the designer yarns, lovely though some of them are.

I frogged the shawl.  You may remember last week it looked like this:

Meadow Flowers - Garter Stitch version

Well, now it looks like this:

Meadow Flowers - Stockinette version

I’m also working it on larger needles and I like it a lot better.  Somehow the only-knit version didn’t strike my eye as all that.  It’s much happier with the knit-and-purl version.  This will change the shape of the finished item somewhat, but neither I nor my eye are very concerned about that :)

The Red Baron

The Baron was actually visible this morning, so I took the opportunity for a little impromptu portraiture :) You wouldn’t think that somebody this bright could successfully hide in a 5 gallon fish tank - but he can do it.  There have been times when Myria and I have taken the lid off the tank and stirred things up (very gently) just to make sure he was still in there!

Hope you all had wildly wonderful weekends, that the time change didn’t throw you off too much and that your impending weeks aren’t too arduous!

While I was working on the hat for last Friday’s post, I made a mistake with the cables.  I got to a row, ready to work a set of twists, and realized that there was a mistake in the last set of cables - two rows back.  Now, the hat is 34 stitches wide so frogging wouldn’t have been the end of the world.  But what if this had been in the middle of a sweater or a blanket?

This is a somewhat finicky process - but if you don’t try to rush yourself, it’s do-able.  It depends on what your comfort level is.  Me, I’d rather not frog if at all possible. 

Note:  This doesn’t address the issue of spotting a mis-crossed cable in a finished piece of work.  For that, go to Judy Gibson’s tip.  While you’re there, read the rest of her knitting pages - the creative mind in action.  I’ve learned a lot from Judy’s generous sharing of her musings and experiments.

Okay, back to the cable problem! 

Wonky Cable Crossing

See the line that starts in the southeast part of the circle?  It moves up towards the northwest under the stitches above it and then proceeds in the same direction and goes under the next line of cable stitches as well.  It should, of course, have gone over that last set.

As I noticed this mistake when I was starting the row, I worked to the point where those 4 stitches became available.

Working over to the problem spot

We are going to drop all four of these stitches back to the mistake, uncross them, re-cross them correctly and work them back up to the current row.

Moving the stitches

First, slip these four stitches over onto the right hand needle.  Don’t twist them, just slide them from the left needle to the right.

Dropping the first stitch

Remove the first stitch from the right hand needle and drop it down two rows.  When you have done that, insert a DPN into the stitch to keep it under control until you have dropped the other three stitches.  Then do the same with the remaining three stitches.

All four stitches dropped

Here, all four stitches have been dropped and you can see them, still crossed incorrectly, on the DPN.  Note the two loops of yarn behind the needle - those are the two rows we’ve dropped the stitches through.

The next step is to uncross the stitches.  You can do this in whatever way is most comfortable to you.  I generally just use my fingers.  Here, you could use your thumb and forefinger to pinch the stitches just below the needle.  Pinch firmly; you’re going to pull the needle out and you don’t want those stitches going anywhere!  Now, remove the DPN.

Insert the DPN, from right to left, into the two stitches on the right.  Slide the needle through almost all the way and then insert the other end, from left to right into the remaining two stitches (you may have to shift your “pinching” fingers a bit).  Bingo!  Now you have four, un-crossed stitches!

Uncrossed stitches

Now we need to re-cross the stitches the right way.  Probably the easiest way to do this is with a cable needle (though if you’re familiar with the cabling-without-a-cable-needle process, you can do it that way too).  Insert the cable needle into the first two stitches on the left hand side of the DPN.  Remove them from the DPN.

Move the cable needle (and its stitches) behind the DPN to the right.  Then transfer the two stitches on the cable needle back to the DPN.  They should now be on the right hand side.  The wonky cable cross has now been corrected.  All we have to do now, is work the stitches back up to the current row.

Re-crossing the stitches

Your friend, the crochet hook

Insert a crochet hook into the first stitch as shown and remove it from the DPN.  Make sure all the other stitches are secure on the DPN.  Then, using the crochet hook, pull through a loop from the loop of the yarn nearest your hook (this is the yarn you released when you dropped the stitches).  Then pull another loop through from the next loop of released yarn and place the resulting stitch on your original right hand needle.  Do the same for the three remaining stitches on the DPN.

Then slip the four stitches (the corrected cable) back to the left hand needle - and you’re ready to carry on!  You may want to tug gently on the fabric to get these re-worked stitches even and straight if necessary.

Corrected cable

This all sounds a lot more complicated than it really is.  Once you’ve done it a couple of times, it’s really very easy.  Of course you probably won’t need to do it very often - God knows I don’t (watching my nose, like Pinocchio’s, grow to an astounding length!) but it’s a useful trick anyway :)

And there you have it!  You’ve fixed your cable and didn’t need to resort to the frog pond to do it!  Pat yourself on the back and go have a glass of wine.

To no one’s surprise (I’m sure) I started the “Meadow Flowers” shawl from Knitter’s Stash last night.  I was delighted to find (as per Elka’s comments on Tuesday’s post) that it is simple, pleasant to work and very lovely.

Meadow Flowers shawl in Sirdar Primavera DK, “Smoke Pink”

I’m liking that pattern and I’m liking this yarn.  Pink is not normally my color, but this really appealed to me; the cream/pink combination reminds me of roses.  So far, I’m finding it very cooperative to work with and the fabric is supple and soft.

Pattern close-up

This shawl has a knitted on border.  I’ve never tried that before and I’m trying not to over think it because I tend to scare myself out of trying things sometimes :) It’s simple enough and looks very nice.  As there’s a yarn-over near the beginning of each pattern row, there’s a nice lacey edge to the shawl that would make fringing a simple matter if I decided to finish it that way.  But I’m not really a fringe person - of course I’m not really a pink person either!  Actually, I like the knitted on edging and I’m pretty sure that’s what I’ll try when the time comes.

I’m working this on US 7 needles and, of course, I wanted to use circulars because shawls expand in width so much.  But these needles are a bit funky.

Strangely shaped circulars

The shank portion of the needle is quite short and this results in cramped fingers after a while.  Also, I think I’d like the fabric to be a little looser than it is now, bearing in mind that it is garter stitch and it will stretch.  I’m considering the possibility of starting over with my US 8 ebony circulars.  I haven’t gotten so far that beginning again would be particularly traumatic and it might be good for the shawl.  Obviously, I’ll work this out one way or the other before I go back to work on it today :)

Looking over Fluffy’s shoulder

He tells me there are days when he’s really happy to be an indoor kitty!