Purlene’s Corner

Size matters in more ways than one, this week. First, my personal size is due to diminish, as I joined Weight Watchers at work last week. I think I need public shame to make progress, and a weekly meeting where I get weighed in is just the ticket. Also, I like that I am told what specific food I can and cannot eat, but I still have room to chow down a sandwich if I want. This is my first full day on the plan, and so of course I have been food-obsessed all day. I’ve got a goal – look better by my NYC trip in November – and I’ve got the good food in my apartment and very little of the bad food, but man, I have thought of nothing else but food. Crazy.

Size also matters when it comes to socks.

Rainbow Sock the First is finished, and I love it like candy. (See? CANDY.) The afterthought heel was perfect, exactly what I needed to get rid of the pooling, and I absolutely love the stripes at the heel.

However.

This, I don’t love. It’s a good half-size too small. I’m not ripping out and redoing, and it’s going to be a bit of a project to get the second sock to match, as there was some creative decreasing and increasing going on. I’m going to finish the pair and give them to my secretary’s daughter, who will love them. Oh, the disappointment! But it was a learning project, and the next pair will be better. And stripey, because I really do love these.

In other less photographic news, I am almost to the yoke on the Hourglass Sweater, and I’m pretty excited about it. :) I do wish the yarn was any color other than pink, but there you have it. I got it on an amazing sale – something like twelve skeins for less than $5 a skein, so I can’t really complain. And it’s going to be gorgeous. I just . . . I have a lot of pink in the wardrobe, you know?

Well, after ten minutes of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, I decided it wasn’t for me, and popped in the Spongebob Squarepants movie instead. It’s been a nest-y knitty weekend. I didn’t even leave the house yesterday. Instead I decided to fix knitting projects that had gone wrong. (and clean house and other more boring things)

I actually finished this sock when Amy was here, but I wasn’t happy with the fit. See, this is what happens when I go off-pattern and blaze my own trail. Or, actually, when I get tired of doing the foot and want to get to the darn toe, already! The instructions say to do the entire chart seven times, then do the first half again, and THEN do the toe. Good instructions, as my sock kind of fit when I left off that last half-repeat, but fits much better now. Let me assure you that picking out the toe and ripping back to a lace pattern was no fun at all. Sock 2 is about four rows into the first pattern repeat, but I used the needles to fix this sock. I’ll probably pick it up again in the coming week. They’re pretty; I want to wear them!

I resurrected the Effing Clapotis and manhandled it back into shape. I do not know why I have such a hard time with this pattern. Rows 6 and 8 get me – the SSK seems particularly random (although I know it isn’t), and I never remember when to do it. Rip rip rip, reknit and fix, and it’s looking better. I made two mechanical changes that have solved many a problem. First, I swapped out the metal needles for bamboo, and boy did that make a difference. The Wool in the Woods yarn was just too slick for metal needles; I was spending half my knitting time fighting to keep the stitches on the needles. The other change, which you can possibly see, was to stop using stitch markers, and change the knit stitch that is later dropped to a purl. It’s easier to see, and not as awkward for me to knit. This is going to be a heavy wrap to begin with (which I have high hopes for, honestly. It gets cold here in the winter), and somehow I felt that using eighteen stitch markers made it even worse. Not to mention I dropped them all the time.

Rainbows! I actually had this one almost finished, and ripped it back. It’s a simple zen sock, and I love how the striping is coming out, but the heel flap destroyed all my pretty stripes. Big honking red band across the top of my ankle, which was just hideous and made me cranky. At the advice of some Ravelry people, I ripped back and started an afterthought heel instead.

The white stripe is where I’m going to pick up the stitches for the afterthought heel. I’m kind of excited about it – I think I’m in a good place to start the toe decreases, but I want to make sure the foot is the right length first. I think I’ll run a safety line through the heel stitches, so I can cut the waste yarn and try on the sock.

I want to go yarn shopping like you cannot BELIEVE. I won’t, because I have plenty, and I need to finish things before starting things, but oh, the desire for new squishy yarn is strong.

Hey, guess who’s on Ravelry? ME. Look me up under ames. :) Now off to build my webspace there. And take pictures. And upload them. omg.