Money Down The Drain!

Do you ever feel like kicking yourself for spending a lot of money on something that breaks after 3 uses? Yep - that is me yesterday.

I finished my Juliet Fondly yarn first toe up socks - I'm very happy with them altho I think I am going to take out the bind off and make the cuff longer:



So it was time to break out my first hank of Socks That Rock.. in Minestone. Gorgeous! Well it was a mistake. I thought my electric ball winder had time to heal since the Kauni fiasco and would perform. Not! I ended up with this big mess of a ball of yarn. Lucky me though - two week ago I forgot I already had a hank of Minestone in my stash when I ordered a second one - I know my stash is so big I don't know what I have anymore. Anyway I planned to give the extra one to my sister. Well - I knew she would understand my predicament so I said a fond farewell to the overpriced yarn monster -



and wound the second hank with my old manual Royal. It worked just fine.. And I started a new sock. This yarn is wonderful - here is the start of a new sock:



Then I decided I really need to do something about this ball winding issue. I have more large hanks of Kauni and its too hard - when you have a large number of small balls - to remember which ball ended and which ball started at the same place. I had insomnia last night so I got online and bought one of these:



Its a Jumbo Ball Winder by Royale - is manual so hopefully it won't break and it has received super reviews. Colorsong says: "I can't begin to tell you how much I love this ball winder - winding has become one of my favorite parts of knitting! Unlike smaller winders, the action is smooth, steady, and simply entrancing to watch." So I think I will like it.

Then my insomnia was so bad that I stayed up till midnight untangling my blob of STR - got it all done, rewound it manually, and sending it off to my sister.

I think - once these socks are done I am going to FINALLY attack one of the Hanne Falkenburg kits I bought awhile ago. Its a Blue/Green Mermaid. They are supposed to have complicated patterns but Amy on the KAL has created an easy spreadsheet to follow. The yarn is to die for - very soft.



It will probably be a couple week until I start since right now I'm exhausted and plan to plop.

Has anyone seen The Last King of Scotland. I netflixed it and Forrest Whittaker is amazing as Idi Amin. Sad movie but so good.

Have a great week.

Wooly Board Part 2

I'm on a roll.. plus today is my last day of vacation. So I decided to wooly board (is that a verb?) my Dale of Norway St Moritz. I really do eventually finish things albeit not as soon as I planned:



Love this sweater. Now that my hot flashes have subsided (I had to go off a high level of Premarin about 3 yrs ago) I can FINALLY wear pullovers again.

Back to my socks!

After a lot of questions on what exactly do I look like when my face is not behind a camera and urging from my sister - I dug out a photo where I wasn't smiling funny (see my profile). This was taken about 2 years ago. I go back and forth between shoulder length and short hair - between highlights and solid colors. I haven't aged a lot since then. I have great genes (my Mom is 92!) and I'm an indoor girl (what else would you expect from a knitter!). I also decided to change my template! Getting bored with the old one.

Its dry!

Living in Denver has its advantages. Our humidity is so low here - a sweater will dry on a Wooly Board in 8 hrs.

So here it is! Not the best photos of me (when I'm on vacation I will not wear makeup and I will not wear my contacts).. but I am very happy with the result. I may reblock the sleeves to make them a bit longer but the cardigan turned out to be cropped and I love it like that. I am very short waisted so its wonderful!

Here I am:



And another one (its so hard to take a photo of yourself in a mirror! )

Wooly Booly, Wooly Booly!

Wooly Booly! Wooly Booly!



Yes I'm a child of the sixties. All I could sing as I put my Kauni on my Wooly Board (the first time I've used it) - is Wooly Booly, Wooly Booly. I suspect some of you don't have a clue what I'm singing but some of you will.

So - I've cropped off some of the clutter but couldn't get rid of everything. I basted the cardigan together so it would stretch evenly ( the next time I will do this before I cut the front steek ). My main objective is to stretch the front. I measured my Philosopher's Wool sweater and stretched the Kauni to that width. I tried not to stretch the arms since the corrugated ribbing won't stretch back. Hope it works!

A tribute to .Sam The Sham and the Pharoahs:

Uno, dos, one, two, tres, quatro
Matty told Hatty about a thing she saw.
Had two big horns and a wooly jaw.
Wooly bully, wooly bully.
Wooly bully, wooly bully, wooly bully.
Hatty told Matty, "Let's don't take no chance.
Let's not be L-seven, come and learn to dance."
Wooly bully, wooly bully
Wooly bully, wooly bully, wooly bully.
Matty told Hatty, "That's the thing to do.
Get you someone really to pull the wool with you."
Wooly bully, wooly bully.
Wooly bully, wooly bully, wooly bully

Later: Here is a brighter photo. I have a question for those of you with Wooly Boards. How in the world do you get it to stay up? It is so top heavy - the slightest bump makes it fall down. Can you say - border collies?

The First One is Done!

Voila.. its a toe up sock on my new sock blocker! I think I should have made it taller but it will do as the first time. I really really really like this style - think it looks better than the first two socks I knit from cuff down. And I think it fits better




I followed the elastic bindoff in the Sockknitter.com tutorial - which is an adoption of the E. Zimmerman technique. So easy - use yarn needle.. put thru two stitches purl wise from right to left - then thru first stitch knit wise from left to right and take that stitch off the needle - except for the first time where you put it on the needle to the right. Very stretchy. But I should have used more yarn - it was getting close to the end.



So now to sock two plus I plan to use my wooly board tomorrow on my Kauni. Photos coming on that! I love taking vacation.

I gotta heel!

Hey everyone! I gotta gusset and I gotta a short row heel!

On the foot (you can see my ghastly long toes!):



And off the foot:



It really isn't that hard.. in fact - I think its a lot easier than cuff down - once I finished ripping the gusset back twice after dropping a stitch, and then picking the stitches up off center - since you don't have to pick up stitches around the heel flap (which I hate to do) and there is no grafting at the toe (which I hate to do). So while I started this so I can use my 360 yd Sock That Rocks yarn without fearing running out of yarn - I have found a better sock for me!

The rest is downhill right? I understand that I need to find a loose bindoff - but I'm researching that right now.

One question if anyone knows - what is the purpose of the wraps? Not sure what they accomplish - but they sure are purty!

Gusset And/Or Heel Flap And/Or Short Row Heel

A very short post with a plea to those who understand. My head is spinning. I have been going over patterns for toe up socks. So - if you do a short row heel does that mean you don't do a gusset? Wendy's simple pattern only does a short row heel. But the tutorial I found always does a gusset and then she gives an option for a flap or a short row. So far - I haven't found any clear description of a short row heel but it looks like something I want to learn. Does ANYONE have a clear explanation of how to do all those wraps, etc?