Lost in sock-land

I'm up to the heel on my green cotton sock (knitted toe-up) and it's about 1/2 inch too short for my foot. Am I knitting tighter than I did on the first sock? Probably. Do I just keep going, ignoring the mismatched patterns? Probably.

Black bra, white T

Yeah, that's what I wear when I get sick.

If only I would remember to change before I walk the dog, and run into all my neighbors. They now think (they already thought, but have had it further confirmed) that I'm a fashion nut-case.

I've been sleeping every free minute, trying to hurry this cold along so I can return to health.

My green cotton sock is a great knitting project when suffering medicine head.

So tired I'm floating

Not really. But it feels that way: I'm moving very slowly and gravity seems to pull very effectively on dropped items, so that they plummet just out of my reach.

My red-socks-on-2-circs have been stalled at the calf shaping for almost a week. I added an extra purl stitch between each of the ribs, so that a "K3P1" became a "K3P2" on the back half. But this didn't seem to do enough. Last night, I had another idea: larger needles! So the back half of the sock is going onto a larger needle for a few rows, and then the front half will also go onto bigger needles. Thus, I will have

1) calf shaping
2) my size 2's free to knit my second green cotton sock!

Now if only I were sufficiently awake to have some confidence in this plan...

Now I Understand...

Now I understand why some bloggers miss an entire week at a time: it's called Real Life and it does get in the way.

For me: start of school. One class unexpectedly gets three more students. Coaching eats up tons of time. New students need coddling, attention, support.

No knitting time, either.

However, I did get a swift and ball-winder for my birthday!

Missing them

For the third time this year, a blogger I adored is shutting her doors and sealing all the windows... saying goodbye, in other words.

It's always a nasty shock to me when this happens. I guess I could understand why MedStudentWhoKnits needed to change things up when she ceased to be a med student. I'd always wondered how Miss Snark kept up her business while also posting thousands of words (intelligent, well-thought-out words) each day. And now, one of my daily favorites, GoldPoppy, has announced that she is through, at least for now.

I loved her posts. She always had fantastic photos. She sometimes shared poetry by authors I'd never discovered before, but now count as favorites. She could be outrageous, whimsical, and devout, all in the same paragraph. She shared a lot of herself in her daily blog entries - very brave, that woman.

I will miss her.

Update?

Not dead, just gearing up for the start of school. I foolishly decided to knit my grandmother a scarf for her birthday, which is in 11 days. Good thing I've got bulky yarn and size 13 needles.

The last great thing I cooked: cold poached salmon and roasted vegetables (potatoes, carrots, and sweet potatoes) with remoulade sauce. By substituting soy sauce for the Worcestershire sauce, I even made the sauce vegetarian! (Yes, I realize that anchovies and salmon fall in the same category of "not-so-vegetarian." The vegetarian did not eat the salmon, but he did enjoy the vegetables and sauce very much.)

Whining has its uses

Having spent the last post whining about my troubles with the "two-socks-at-once" concept, I was inspired to think about what was causing these problems. And - why didn't I do this earlier? - a little thought was able to solve several of the biggies.

1) Every time you flip the needles over, check which way both free ends of yarn are going before you start to knit. This mostly takes care of the "why is my yarn wrapped around the needles twice?" problem. If you alternate which way you flip the needles over, you can also solve a lot of the "tangled yarn" problems.

2) Before you start to knit, tug gently on the needles you're holding. You should feel tension. If you don't, you aren't holding ends that belong to the same needles. Correct this.

3) It turns out that you don't have to remove one sock to knit the other heel.

4) Laddering is hidden much better if you place it along one of the knit-purl interchanges.

Now I'm past both heels, and cruising up the leg!