World's Greatest Knitting Husband

What a sweetie my hubby is -- he is so good to me its unbelievable ... yet being so open hearted can cause us all sorts of issues as people tend to take advantage of him.

but here is how sweet he is.

Yesterday my second order of books (and my partners needles) came in the mail ... $50 for free shipping feach order ... he knows I'm looking at the site again for yarn .... he sat next to me as I worked on my laptop.

So we had to go to the Mall of America - the only thing it is missing is a craft store (hint hint to any LYS owners out there) .... and I had commented that I wished that we would time to stop by Walmart to pick up some circular needles.

Well after MOA we went to Sam's Club - where he spoiled the two little ones we took with us (not so little really - 8 & 12) and when we got home he said that nothing else could get done until everything was put away .... figuring he was talking about the stuff he bought for them it was quite the surprise when he started putting on his shoes and said 'let's go'.

Well we got to Walmart and they didn't have the size I needed for my socks ... so I fretted a bit and he asked if Target would have them - nope, no craft area there ... well we walked around the store a bit and he peeked at the Blue-ray dvds (the next Betamax, if you ask me) and then asked if there wasn't anyplace close that had knitting needles - I said well there was Hancock Fabrics...

Boom, next thing you know we're there! What a sweetheart ... he found the knitting needles before I did and waited patiently helping me check the size on each one - it only took a little education for him to learn that mm size is not the same a US needle size. Nope they didn't get that small either.

I told him that the LYS (Three Little Kittens) would probably have them but we both agreed that they would probably be too expensive to buy two circs - so he ran me off to Michael's all the way back by Sam's Club (two cities over).

I wish i had my camera with me - it was quite the picture, he found the needles whip-stitch and even found the proper size quicker than the stitches pull-out when the phone rings (c'mon you know its happened to you too) ... he even tried to help find some size 3 sock wool for me. we found plenty of size 4 (worsted) but no size 3 (DK/sport) --- actually remembering that Michaels used to be Lee Wards, THE go to place for crafting when I was growing up, especially knitting & crocheting (they had two full walls and at least 4 whole aisles of differing yarn ... and the christmas felt crafts - OMGs, I still drool thinging about it all ... it was the 'candy store' of my youth) .... anyways they used to be LeeWards, now they are nothing like it - now they have a single aisle and four end caps and a part of the back wall of yarn, but only the width of two aisles.

I could have cried to see how the mighty have fallen. So sad.

But there my husband was, lookinwg at needles .... feeling the wool/wool blends ... checking labels ... and he actually seemed to be enjoying it! What a sweety. He found me two circs in the proper size, each a different color - that will make doing the socks on two needles so much easier.

He was so adorable! of course, I kind of blew it when I took the kids down the doll aisle to point out the shoes for my daughters 16" springfield doll -- she actually wasn't as excited about that as she was the teddy bears that they had there too.

Anyhow - so we left there and came home.

Being curious about different sock cast-ons I hit You Tube ... I was looking for how to do the Norwegian cast-on .... what I found were some vids on doing a 'Twisted German' cast 0n looking at them I think they are the same thing in actuallity. So I was watching them on the laptop during the commercials of his show so that I wouldn't interrupt anything (after all he had been so sweet).

Suddenly he looks at the screen and asks 'Is that the Yarn Harlot?' Yes my husband knows something of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee ... he knows I like reading her blog, often talking to it - oh you know you do it too - and yesterday as I was uploading her audiobook 'At Knit's End' to my iTunes I kept laughing at the 'You Know You Knit Too Much When...' segments - I'm sorry I couldn't help it ... and then of course I shared them.

My absolute favorite so far that I have been giggling about all day? You Know You Knit Too Much When...you follow a man thru the store not because he is handsome but because he is wearing a sweater that has the cable you've been trying to figure out. That is so funny to me -- because I am that way with crochet, see crochet is my first love - its where i started to crawl, then walk, then run like the wind.

knitting is like learning a second language - I'm sliding off to the side here aren't I?

So wonderful husband took me to Michael's ... not because he didn't want to spend the money at KnitPicks but because he didn't want me to have to wait for two weeks for them to get here and then I wouldn't be able to get the in two different colors (I had explained how two different colors would be helpful, but that i wasn't a huge fan of bamboo because it gripped to tightly to the yarn)

couldn't you just eat him up? So now I have my needles, I'm pretty sure about the pattern I will use, but the yarn -- well I still haven't decided on that issue yet -- but you can't say he didn't try!

I think I will keep him -- sorry ladies, he's all mine!

Purtiest and saddest sight to be seen

Okay so I finally got around to taking some photos of the Crazy colors sock I've been working on -- maybe I will actually finish its mate before the end of summer ... lol. Its my 'empty hands' project...that is it keeps my hands from being empty when I'm someplace - it tends to come along, and while it will come out of my bag it will rarely get worked on or worked on at a snails pace.
It is a toe up sock of my own pattern (its fairly simple but I will put it up after the second sock gets finished ... so I can check the pattern). I had a bit of a problem with the increases ... I am so used to working with dpn's that I kept trying to work with the needle of the 'quiet' circs still holding stitches. For the second socks I will work them with the non-working stitches on the cable and not the needle, that way the first stitch of the other needle will be just a little tighter and not make the hole (hopefully).

here it is with the needles showing ... yes those are ebony circs - the ones I got on sale at herrschners.com ... they are very nice. I was a little leary at first because the wooden single-points I've used have always seemed to 'sticky' to be able to work with, I like to have the stitches slide off the needle when I'm taking off the stitches instead of hanging up or leaving lint behind - so I tend to stick with the metallic needles.
here's a slightly closer shot so you can see the colors a bit better. Actually I swear the photo makes the color too 'orangy' than it really is. It is a nice 'hot' color scheme of mosty red apple red & magenta (more on the purply side). In fact when you look at the first photo - the band by my thumb is red and the wide one near the toes is magenta. Okay - those letters aren't magenta but I don't have the color code for it yet.

I wish the photo would show the pattern a little better - I like the way it is working up...and it is so simple too.
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now for the saddest thing ... okay maybe not the saddest in your life but its the saddest on this page that's for sure.

Yes that is another pair of ebony circs that I got on sale. no they did not come that way. I thought I had order 2 pr of size 2.5 (3.0mm) for doing socks on but found that I had only ordered 1 pr so I set them aside by my bed and didn't think anymore about it and just used the matching pair I had, figured I could switch to them for when I do the cuff and heel .... well I didn't think anymore about it.
Until one morning after the kids had been wrestling on our bed I heard a horrid crunch ... at first i thought I had stepped on a pencil (they do their homework in my room on my bed where they can spread out) ... so I didn't panic.
Until I picked up the card! Oh my - I could have cried. My only consolation was that I paid less than 1/2 price for them. Actually I am going to see if I can't reshape and sand them into a shorter pair of needles and then wax them to coat them and see what can be done with them.

I'm not sure what I will be able to use them for, but I'm a creative chick -- I'll think of something.

stupid stupid stupid

I am such an idiot. I worked all day yesterday on that sock waiting for hubby to call and then about 11pm last night I looked at the heel and thought I had made a major mistake--I had nearly twice as many stitches as I thought I should have...

So I ripped it back to the stop-line...thank goodness I've learned to put that bit of string thru to make going back so much easier-it even makes it easy to....well I'll get to that.

so then I had to figure out how many stitches needed to got back onto the heel flap needle and how many were to go back onto the circ to hold for the top of the foot. Well I picked up the stitches---count them out and discovered that I was missing three stitches, this is wear that stop-thread comes in real handy.

When you drop a stitch it will not let it run all the way down--did I mention this before? This means that you can easily find a loop with the crochet hook to re-trellis it up. And it just so happens that the frequent color changes of this yarn worked to my advantage too....it was very easy to find when I had missed picking up a stitch.

So I have to admit that was fine....and I was able to figure out which stitches needed to go back onto the circ needle--yeah!!

So I got stitching again...about 1am I looked at it and realized that I screwed up on the heel somehow and had to pull out the stitches on more time. UGH! Atleast it wasn't so bad...only about 13 rows...but while undoing it....I discovered...

I didn't have to frog it the first time!!! (this first time, not the very first time)...I was so mad at myself. I forgot that I was trying it on without finishing that portion of the sock completely yet...in fact I was only 4 rows into that section--that's why I still had so many stitches==what an IDIOT.

Well I finally caught up to myself this morning at 3:30-4am...so I started taking what hubby calls Mini-Vacations...15 minute naps...somewhere along the way it got to be a bit longer than a 15 minute nap...I woke up about 5am with what amounted to about 1/2hr of good sleep and I have to say that I wish I could take a couple of those rows back, I didn't do the best job of picking up stitches but then I never claimed to be an expert stitcher.

In fact I'm pretty sure I was only a beginner. I will have to play with tugging some of the stitches a little.

Well that sentence doesn't make any sense---I'm just so tired.

I have got to finish this sock so I have time to wash/dry/block them to get them into the mail.

Kids and Knitting do NOT mix

I love my kids, I really do.

I was in the bedroom (where the HD tv is) and I was working on my current sock...see previous photos...when the phone rang and I put down my work. I had just gotten to the heel flap so had switched from my size 2 dpn's to my size 1 circs, figured I would make life easy on myself and if I put the work down for a long period of time I could slip the stitches down onto the cable. Good Idea, right?

I'm not used to working with circs....I only got them because I was going to try making socks using the Magic Loop system but couldn't figure it out...so there they were laying on the bed.....next to my 11 yr old son....who was watching television with me....apparently he is not the fan of the news because as soon as I got into the quick conversation on the phone he decided to get off the bed....the call lasted all of 50 seconds....literally, if even that long.

Son and I passed each other thru the door...when there on the floor lay...you guessed it---the circs....no sock....just the circs!

I had cataract surgery about 4 years ago, at age 38, so my eyesight is not the best but even I could see I had a BIG problem on my hands.

So I popped on my magnifying glasses over my regular glasses (it makes my entire lens the same prescrib as my bi-focals) and proceded to slip as many of the loops back onto the circ without loosing them....this is not easy for anyone, but try to do it while fighting the urge to find the kid that did it (I know it was my fault for not sliding down those stitches)

{sighs} so I get all the stitches on, give it a gentle tug just to make sure...a run is easy to fix at this point, but {wiping sweat from brow} luckily I didn't have any runs--all the stitches were saved. Right??

WRONG! I started to do the next knit row. It was great the first half of the heel flap==not a problem EVERY single stitch was twisted correctly and right where it belonged, but once I passed the marker that's when the problems began.

1. most of the stitches are actually the ones from the previous row, or a mix of the previous row stitch and the present row stitch.
2.still hadn't dropped any rows, no runs...well that's good news at least...but I have stitches where I caught PART of them...which means I have split the yarn...which weakens it. On the heel this is not a good thing, in fact its a very, very bad thing.
3. hubby came home and now I haven't had time to straighten out the mess....only reason I'm writing this blog now is because I'm waiting for my stroganoff to meld together (keyboards are easier to clean than knitting while its on the needles).

So now I am sitting here dreading having to get out the crochet hook and redoing 15 stitches so that I am catching all the yarn fibers that should be there----and seperate the previous row from the current one.

You know the devil on my shoulder is saying "just stitch it the way it is, no one will notice the heel"....but I just can't do that....{sigh}

On the bright side I told my daughter, they are her socks, what had happened and that I would have to fix her heel and she said "on my leg or on the sock?" Maybe she knew I could have used that good chuckle about then.