Advent socks – not finished

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas, and you’re enjoying this weird period of time when nobody knows what day it is.

The advent socks were going entirely to plan, until day 23. On the first try the patterns were not quite matching up; I thought I must have messed up the count on the first row so I tinked back and tried again. Same result so back I went. The third try still didn’t quite feel right, but I kept going (as you do) until the final round. At this point I decided to count the stitches and found that I was missing one.

Both socks then went into the naughty corner for a few days and I got on with Christmas.

Last night I looked back and realised that the missing stitch had been dropped on the previous stripe, and I hadn’t noticed because it was such a simple pattern that still looked like it lined up properly. Gutted. For fear of that one loose stitch laddering down and undoing the whole sock, I stuck some needles into the last correct stripe, ripped out the two wrong stripes, and started them again.

The diagonal stripe pattern went as easily as last time (with the correct stitch count all the way through) and I’m now working my way through this final stripe hopefully for the final time.

If I don’t mess up anything else these might be finished in time for Hogmanay!

Hannah

xXx

Froggy froggy froggy

I was going to do a Sock it to me Monday post yesterday, but my sock ended up looking like this:

If my calculations are correct, this is now the sixth time I’ve started and subsequently frogged it. Normally I would have taken the hint by now and found something else to use the yarn for, but I just can’t seem to let this one go.

Today could be the day though! I had a wisdom tooth out last night so I’m off work feeling sorry for myself recovering, which gives me a clear chunk of time to really concentrate on my knitting and hopefully get it all right. 

Fingers crossed.

Hannah

xXx

 

All’s well that ends well

Everything was a bit of a disaster in my last post, but it wasn’t actually the end of the world like my brain kept telling me.

The jumper is flying along now and should be finished in time for posting at the weekend.

I haven’t seen the recipient for about a year, and have very little interaction with children in general, so I have no idea if it’s going to fit right. My hope is that it will either be the right size or have a little room for growth.

And I’m extremely happy to say that the pizza dough was perfect, which is handy as I made enough for five pizza bases!

Thank goodness it’s freeze-able.

Hannah

xXx

One of those days

I’m just going to sit and play computer games tonight because I don’t think it’s safe for me to attempt any more making.

First, I came to put aside sleeve stitches on the Good Old Raglan and realised I’d done the increases COMPLETELY wrong. There were 4 increase lines equally spaced around it, rather than the correct spacing for sleeves and body. I tried tinking back but then couldn’t work out where the stitch markers should go (thanks to some short rows at the neck) and ended up frogging the lot to start again.

New progress pic

Then it was time to start the prep for sourdough pizza so we can have it tomorrow. I measured everything out and thought it was a lot, but told myself it just seemed like a lot because I’d halved the recipe last time.

Turns out I hadn’t noticed there was a wee tip of a butter knife under one corner of the scales so all the measurements were completely off. You’d think I would have twigged when it used up nearly a whole bag of flour, but noooo.

My dearest hope is that all the measurements were off the same amount so it’s just a lot of useable dough, rather than a waste of starter and so much flour. There’s only one way to find out.

So I give up on today. Hopefully I’ll get my mojo back tomorrow.

Hannah

xXx

Sock it to me Monday 25

Oh this heel is going to finish me off, I swear.

It’s hardly changed since last week, thanks to the saga.

First, while trying to admire my handiwork with the heel flap I noticed that a few rows back there were some purl stitches right in the middle. Apparently counting to two was just too much for me and I’d turned the work after only finishing one needle.

Second, in the process of tinking back to fix that problem I realised there was one needle of 18 stitches and one of only 17. I went back a few more rows and the count wasn’t fixing itself, so I stuck in a lifeline and frogged the whole heel flap.

Yes, there were only 17 stitches all the way down. No, I don’t know how it happened or how I didn’t notice for an entire heel flap.

Thankfully it then went smooth as silk.

But third, the heel turn. I’m now on my fourth attempt. I can’t even remember all the ways I’ve messed it up, but believe me when I say I am never ever EVER using this heel pattern again.

Please keep your fingers crossed/send prayers/good vibes/whatever you do my way that this time I can get the stupid thing right!

Hannah

xXx

Pride comes before a silly mistake, usually.

I admit it, I got cocky. ‘I wonder how fast I could make a whole sock now’ I thought. For I, as you may know, am now a sock knitting wizard.

But then I went to knit the next needle and found this:

A big, long, accidental float on the outside. On the previous round I must not have noticed that the yarn was wrapped round the side (a frequent occurrence), so I missed a whole needle and carried on knitting the next one.

I’m a dingbat.

But now I’m a dingbat who will always double and triple check that the yarn is not wrapped round anywhere in any way before I start knitting.

Plus this is the first time I’ve had to undo anything on the second sock, so on balance I’m doing pretty well.

But let’s not get cocky…

Hannah

xXx

A froggy finish for a Friday

Behold – a flattened froggy bookmark!

The boyfriend wanted the tongue and the arms to stay wiggly, but I blocked out the legs and body, as they’ll actually be in the books.

I made a few minor mistakes when putting froggy together, but I’m trying very hard to ignore them and focus on the fact that I made a thing! And he’s really pleased with it, and it’s exactly what he asked for, so yeah I’m calling that a win.

Hannah

xXx

 

Wonky roses

Current WIP count: 7

I am a dingbat. We all knew this anyway, but at the weekend I got even more proof.

The boyfriend asked about Roses for Grandma, so I laid out the squares I had made so far to give him an idea of how it will look.

I’m actually further on than this, but it gives an idea

As I was explaining, I noticed that some squares were more ruffly than others. Thinking maybe I had used a different sized hook, I picked up a ruffled and an unruffled square to compare them, and realised that one was a whole round smaller than the other.

I checked the others and yes, I had reached the penultimate round, somehow skipped over the last part of the pattern, and cut the yarn. Six times.

So my Sunday was spent adding round 6 to a bunch of squares to bring them up to the right shape and size. I’m very good at round 6 now.

I’m hoping they were all from the beginning of this project when I was blindly following the pattern and not really understanding how it related to the yarn in my hands, rather than me just having several special moments when I actually knew what I was doing, but who knows!

It wouldn’t be a project of mine if it all went smoothly, would it?

Hannah

xXx

P.S. just for funsies, does anyone want to guess how many skeins of yarn I have in my stash?

All befuddled

Current WIP count: 6

I have made it through the first week of a brand new job! While I’m not as exhausted as I expected after all the newness and strangers to deal with, my brain has gone a bit mushy. It’s showing in my attempt to make another Flax Light.

Firstly, I either forgot how garter stitch works or just got hyper-focussed on purl stitches: round 1 starts with some purls, and I couldn’t for the life of me work out how to do a kfb for round 2. “But it’s a purl stitch!” I kept saying to myself, more times than I care to admit.

After a few days in the naughty corner (the knitting, not me) I picked it up and suddenly my brain was working again.

Or so I thought. The next challenge was placing stitch markers and, considering they’re labelled ‘raglan markers’ in the pattern, it should be pretty obvious that they’re to mark the raglan increases. But nooo, this dingbat got it into her head that they marked the beginning and end of the garter sections.

I was a few rounds in by the time it twigged, I tried to fix it and ended up making more of a mess, so I frogged the lot.

This is now all I have to show for myself.I’m thinking I’ll aim for Christmas rather than baby’s first birthday at the beginning of December!

On the plus side, I think my new job is going to be really good, AND I can take the subway instead of driving so I can knit every day on my commute. It all balances out in the end.

Hannah

xXx

WIP Thursday 01.08.19

White rabbits!

Current WIP count: 8

I survived my few days at camp (just about. I’m kind of glad I couldn’t stay the whole week), and I managed to get some progress on my Lego blanket at last. Although not as much as I hoped because I’m a dingbat.

You should really check you’re using the correct yarn before ploughing on and making 20+ Lego bricks.

But on the plus side, when I switched to the yarn I should have been using all along I realised that the bricks weren’t going to be as scrawny as that first lot led me to believe. Phew.

Over 100 left to make so I’m still a little cross with myself about the time I wasted on those blue bricks.

Lesson learned, I hope!

Hannah

xXx

Oh…fiddlesticks.

That’s almost what I said when I realised that I’d added in some extra stitches to the panel of my Flax Light. About 10 rounds ago.

I know the sensible advice I would probably give someone else – Nobody will notice when you’re wearing it. That just makes it more unique. And so on.

But I’m not taking my advice right now. I think I used up all my ‘ignore the mistakes’ energy on the missed purl rows, and I just can’t leave this one be.

So please pardon my French while I sit here tinking rows and rows of work because of one silly mistake.

Oh well, at least I noticed now and not when it was all done and blocked!

Hannah

xXx

WIP Saturday 22.07.19

Current WIP count: 7

You’ll have to forgive the delay, I’ve been away for a few days with no time at all for blogging. Glorious sunshine though so I’m not mad.Last weekend both Morag and Flax Light came on my travels with me, but in the end I only worked on one of them.

Turns out this sleeve is just simple enough to keep working on it even when I’m totally exhausted. There’s been a lot of that recently so this is the only yarnery I’ve done.

Although I’m also spending time trying to convince myself I don’t care about the rows that should have been purled.

There’s no way I’m going back to the start and doing it again so I’ll just deal with them.Would it be too much effort to count the rows and knit them the same on the other sleeve? I’ll let you know.

Hannah

xXx