I think I'm going to start my Halloween sock kit from Woolgirl (see it here). Fat chance I'll finish it before Halloween, though.
I've had a major breakthrough in my sock knitting this weekend. My primary trouble (other than the pattern glitches that pop up periodically, or that 'failure to read the pattern closely' problem) is I can never get the foot length right on the first, or second, or often the third try. So I spend a lot of time ripping out and re-knitting the toe until it works. This happens despite my frequent trying-on of the sock and my foot measurements taken a zillion times during the course of knitting each first sock (of course, it's figured out by the time I get to the second sock). I believe I have found a cure for this problem.
At Stitches East, I bought a Lucy Neatby sock-knitting DVD from Shelridge Farm. I'd been having trouble with a sock I was knitting from her Cool Socks Warm Feet book, so I bought the video. I watched it this past weekend with Mom, who's tackling baby socks, and was half-listening to Lucy Neatby talk about foot measurements when she said to make the sock about a 1/2 inch shorter than the length of the foot. What?! That's my problem? Never even occurred to me. If it's mentioned in her book, I missed it (again, that "not reading closely" problem). All the sock patterns I recall instruct the knitter to knit (generally) to 1-1/2 inches less than the desired length to start the toe. I didn't know the desired length was less than the length of my foot. Is that intuitive? Anyway, I know what to do for the next sock.
All in all, it's been a quiet day. The boys were in school from 9a-3p, the baby was in school from 9:15a-11:15a. I had a quick trip to the dentist, a 1/2-hour nap, took the baby to pick up the boys from school, played in the little playground and had a low key afternoon. Things picked up at bedtime. First, I got to call to Poison Control: while I was brushing Baby Girl's teeth, Boy J climbed on the toilet behind me, grabbed the (fluoride-free) toddler toothpaste, and began sucking on/licking the tube (which was nearly empty, but still). The stuff is safe to swallow, but I wanted to be sure. He's ok; Poison Control said it may make him nauseous (which is probably not a bad thing). And then, after I put them to bed and started cooking dinner, the boys all began screaming that I had to come up because their pajamas "came off." Came off? Like a Harry Potter spell: a swish and a flick and...no pj's? Well, after helping them put the pj's on and showing them the "baby" pajamas they'll wear the next time they strip (goodness knows if they'll fit--they're last year's one piece, zipper pj's that I used to put on backwards so they couldn't unzip them), they seemed suitably chastened and went right to sleep. Of course, that meant no dinner until 9p for me, so now I"m going to finish up, download a few podcasts, and go upstairs and knit. Maybe cast on something new? Oh, didn't I do that last week?
No comments:
Post a Comment