Progress report

You haven't seen it lately, but I have been knitting furiously behind the scenes. Sometime there has been more Furious involved than there has been Knitting. There have been several occasions in which Furious did not involve Knitting at all, but instead Ripping. I am pleased to tell you, however that Furious never resorted to tossing Knitting across the room with disgust, although it's come close a few times.

At last, I am starting to see some progress on my socks. After many, many false starts (Todd made the mistake of asking me how much time I have spent on these babies. If I were being paid by the hour, these may very well be the most expensive socks on earth.), I am finally catching on.


I think perhaps I took on too many new skills for this project: short rows (not entirely new, but those big holes on the side were new, that's for sure), magic loop, lace, and toe-up knitting. Plus, it's only my second pair of socks. Then again, that's the way I tend to do things: just dive in. If you know me well, it won't come as any surprise to you that I took on so many new challenges simultaneously. (But my mother may be surprised that the tossing part didn't occur when Furious was involved with the project.) I've learned quite a bit, despite the involvement of Ripping. I've also "discovered" a few helpful hints which I'm sure aren't news to more accomplished, experienced knitters, but which are proving to be very useful to me as I struggle forward:

1. I can't remember who posted this idea, but I'm using a "lifeline" for the lace. At the end of each full repeat I pull a string through the loops on my needle so that if I need to back up I'll have all the stitches aligned and can start over at the beginning of that repeat without spending painful hours tinking and trying to find my way to the beginning of a row with all the stitches in place. It's come in very handy and will probably be really important now that I'm nearly to the heel and need to try the short row thing again (Furious grits teeth with determination in the background).


2. I've written each row of the lace pattern on a separate card in a flip notebook. This way I know exactly where I am in the pattern, even if I need to put my knitting down suddenly. It also saves me from misreading a line on pattern.

And yes, this Lorna's Laces yarn is fantastically addictive. Thanks, Emily! With all those colors to choose from, why would anyone ever want to knit with anything else? I'm not even minding the kajillion-stitches-per-inch thing; sometimes I forget that these are size 0 needles.

Did I mention that I've changed my mind once again and am back to making the Elfine sock after all? I finally came to that decision after ripping the toe at least four times. Anna's toe was simply a matter of "make one"-type increases. I like the result and the ease of this method much better than the short row method. So yes, the sock is taking forever. But who cares, when the yarn is this fabulous?