about the socks

You know what I am liking? The weekly progress pictures on the sock. Why? Because this week, I felt like I hardly knit at all. My arm has been hurting (which seems to be a combination of the ulnar nerve problem AND the tendonitis problem that I've had in the past. So my pinkie goes numb and my wrist hurts and my thumb feels weird.) Needless to say, it makes me not want to knit. I do think I have most of it figured out--I think the planks were aggravating my ulnar nerve and the brace I was wearing for that was making my wrist hurt. I'm switching from planks to boat pose, but I need to work up to a 30 second boat. I stopped planking a few days ago--stopped wearing my brace, and moved my pillows so I wasn't sleeping totally on my shoulder and I felt better so fast it wasn't even funny.

Are you curious about the steps? No? Well I'll tell you anyway. I still have my 10K streak going, but this week was HARD for that too. Wednesday I had to take my car in for service, AND I took a nap in the morning (it had been a rough rough night the night before). Then I didn't walk over to the school to get the girls (my daily walk!), so by 3:30 when we were all home I had 3000 steps. Usually I have 7000 by then. Let's just say I paced while dinner was cooking and barely made it. Yesterday was a similar thing--except we helped pack Thanksgiving baskets for the food pantry--and while it SEEMS like you'd be getting a lot of steps because you are walking along a line of food, picking up cans as you go, it turned out to only be 1500 steps for a 2 hour block. I probably have more to say bout what foods you should donate to food pantries based on this, and you can most likely find lots of articles that tell you the same thing, but I'm going to start with my big pet peeve: DON'T DONATE EXPIRED FOOD. And my "rule of thumb" If I won't eat it--I'm not donating it (exception: pumpkin pie filling stuff--I hate pumpkin, but some people love it--I haven't met anyone who likes canned potatoes though--if you do--give me a shout out). But on with the knitting!

As you can see--I'm getting closer to the end. If all goes well I may even finish it thins week.

Also on my list this week were to darn my Harry Potter socks. These are my favorite of my hand knit socks, and they are old, and Opal no longer makes the Harry Potter colorways. (note to self--I should have bought more of this yarn when I had the chance). I was distressed last year to note that one of these socks was getting thin on the bottom, and sad to say, I've been putting off fixing them for far too long. Every day this fall I'd look at them on the dresser and think--You should fix those! So I put it on the list (that coincidentally sits next to where the socks were--duh) and actually did it.

That's the Harry and Ron colorway BTW.

Also on the list--2 pairs of secret pjs (not done) and 2 pairs not secret PJs (done!). I am all set to get the secret ones done too--the problem is I got the elastic measured out for them on the weekend, so you can't really pull out the secret pairs while everyone is home. Joann's has flannel on super sale Wednesday and Friday this week, and I may pop over and pick up some more--for me. The girls are set I think after their Christmas pairs, but I would love another new pair.

screaming green socks--again

I can't remember if I mentioned that I had a few socks to repair or not the last time I wrote.  I did.  I had 3 pairs.  One pair needed darning to shore up a thin heel.  One pair had a hole that needed a patch and one pair.... well I should have probably pitched them.

This pair of socks, I had patched before and they are not even that old.

The socks in question are my screaming green socks, which as you can see from the ravelry project page I linked too were completed in July of 2011.

I featured them in an entry on darning.  I wrote about them multiple times (including here when I thought they might be too big.  They have felted slightly). And again, they had both a hole and a place that needed some darning.  I fixed them, but this is it.  This is the LAST time I am fixing this particular pair of socks.  They get another hole, and I'm .... doing something else with them.

The problem is, that I have a lot of the yarn leftover. I usually do have sock yarn leftover after making socks.  Usually not enough for a full pair.  And I've toyed with making multi-yarn socks, or fraternal twin socks, or something from all my leftovers.  But I don't know what.  I do know this, even though I have 49 grams of this left, it will never be a sock, as I cannot imagine that I'll ever be happy with a sock made out of this--even if I had enough for a full pair.  I still love the color, and I'd like to have something that bright and lively.  

Darn it! no! Reknit it!

My local friends of the library has 3 used book sales every year in which they sell donated books and magazines. Well at the sale (or rather the pre-sale because I'm a member!) I scored a whole stack of Interweave knits magazines. I bought 15 of them even though I had a few thinking I'd sort out what I already owned and let my knitting friends choose from the leftovers. One thing I like about the older magazines is that you can really tell which styles are "classic," they are the ones that still look good 12 years later.
Another thing I like is that the articles can be really helpful. So when I saw that the Winter 1998 issue had an article on repairing your knitting by darning and a few other methods I decided to save it. Good thing too because I discovered to my horror a hole in one of my hand knit socks.


So I decided to dig out this magazine and read the article and try, not just darning but maybe something new (because I already darned some socks). Of course it took me a while because somehow even though I have no qualms about knitting in public, or making homemade jam, or baking bread I seem to have in my head that "mending" is old fashioned old lady work.
Which is stupid because I don't think "mending" things around the house is old fashioned or delegated to old ladies. I think of that as practical.

So today I decided to get over this and read the article and figure out what I needed. Lo and Behold, I learned several things. First is that you don't need to darn, you can re-knit. AND if you don't have a hole yet, you can swiss darn. So today, I reknit this hole.

First I gathered my supplies:
The magazine, the sock, the extra yarn, several sets of needles as two sizes are needed, and a tapestry needle.
I forgot to include my egg and my scissors. But I had them.
The first instruction was to make the hole square--which meant making it wider! It also was supposed to be an odd number of rows.

Then you were to pick up stitches using a needle two sizes smaller than you originally used, two before the hole, all the way across to two after. How were you supposed to know what size needle you used before Ravelry? I have no idea. But I looked on ravelry and discovered not only did I use size 2.25mm needles, but I finished these socks last July. So tsk tsk tsk on longevity! I'd have more to say about this yarn if I wasn't a firm believer in the adage: if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all (except to your husband who just hears yarn yarn yarn yarn no matter what I say about yarn)
It looked like this:

And then you are supposed to knit the same number of rows you are repairing in the pattern of the area you are repairing--in this case stockinette.
So then I had this little flap:

AND THEN...
well and then the instructions said to graft it or kitchner it to the top and I got so engrossed in the directions I neglected to take pictures. This is why it is called "disasters with yarn" and not "perfection with yarn"...

I managed it and my patch looks like:


Then I sewed up the sides using the tails. I'm fairly happy with the result.

I think sometime soon I need to do a complete entry on swiss darning because you can use that to shore up the "thin" spots on socks that eventually wear into holes, and I have a few of those.

darn it!

Back when I first took a class in how to knit socks, a very good friend of mine gave me a darning egg from her collection (she collects them because she finds them amusing). She said--You'll probably want to learn to use it.

I went along fine, and then my first pair of socks got a hole in them, which irritated me, as they were not even a year old at the time. Then my beloved Lorna's laces socks all started to get thin. Drastic measures needed to be taken.
So yes, I scoured Youtube.
I discovered that some videos are not as helpful as say others. But, if you want to learn like your grumpy grandma was teaching you, please watch the first link. (If you'd like to see how to really do it click the second). After watching both videos, I attempted it and this:

Became this:


I discovered that the hint about the matching yarn makes for a much better patch, and so now, I'm keeping all my sock yarn leftovers FOREVER. I also patched up my very first pair I ever knit, but it was tiring work, and so I haven't yet done my second pair of Lorna's laces. Am wearing one pair I mended today and I can't really feel the patch like I thought I might.

Also, I finished blocking the colinette scarf:

And I've started on a sweater. I need to do some tiny swatching on the socks (I hate to admit swatching socks, but I do. Not as much as say a sweater, but still.) My bathrooms are still dirty and the floor still needs mopping, but I'm happy.