Sock Yarn

Last month I decided I am going to knits socks. Being a sane, sensible person I thought it best to make something easier on bigger needles since I have never used DPN's or knit in the round. I decided on a Hallowig to start with since I have never used DPN's and I think it's cool and looks fairly uncomplicated.. I have a set of size six Clovers kindly picked out for me by Rita in New York, some not so wonderful yarn, a pattern, and a strong yen to get started. I was off... The first six inches of two by two ribbing on my straight sixes went quickly but I was eager to offloaded my stitches to my four needles and start counting off for markers. Well...I was a stitch shy. But, hey, no problemo, I would just pop one in when I came to the shortage-no big. Now, I have seen posts by wicked people making disparaging comments on the topic of DPN's and I was determined not to be prejudiced. All new things take practice. A calm head and a steady hand and some patience is all that is required. Onward MacDuff!! My first round was a...words cannot express. Stitches were dripping and dropping from the ends and I would just get the ones on this needle put back on when the ones on that needle would fall off. I finally did what you're supposed to do and smushed those puppies to the midddle of the needles. Calm head, steady hand, soldier on. I kept on rounding and realized about round number fourish that I had forgotten to put in the marker to show the end of the rounds. So I stopped knitting to fix that. Then at the end of the tenth row I noticed my two by two ribbing was just a little off. I had some two by threes, two by fours, and a stretch of stockinette. Well, I think symmetry is boring anyway and this would make my wig different and kicky. Why not spice things up? Then I noticed I had a few ladders, holes and, bulgey places in my fabric. At this time I thought perhaps a short peek at some how-to sites would not be remiss. I was not, not, not going to frog my wig... Allow me to interject some background here. I need to tell you a little about where I live. I am, for those who don't know, a live-in caregiver in a very small town. I have never seen anyone knit or crochet here and have never received any replies to my little notes on various bulletin boards about having a knitting/crochet circle or gabfest. I take my cared-for-person to his doctor visits here in town and always take a WIP with me. I always get comments. "How lovely." "How fast you work." "How clever you are." "I would never have the patience/time/smarts to do that." Since my cared-for-person and I are at the various offices here quite frequently I see many of the same people over and over again. Some have seen projects from start to finish. They see me in the Piggly Wiggly and ask about my current project. Women have told other women about my wondrous works. "Sister, this is that girl I was telling you about." And deep in my evil little mind I am eating this up and wallowing in their approbation. I glow, my heart throbs and my head grows larger. Obviously I am vastly superior to these country yahoos. Ahem, to continue...While sitting in the waiting room surrounded by some of my fan club, I take out my Hallowig on its four needles and started to work and waited for all the good comments that were coming. One fella said' "Hey gal, whatcha ya' making now?" "A hat," I beam. Another man, there were no women there that day, says, "Whatcha call that yer doin'?" "Looks like a mess to me," says another. "You sure yer doin' that the right way?" chimes in an ancient specimen. There is a redneck-against-the-Yankee-gal-poke-fun-a-thon in the making. The testosterone level is rising fast. "My boy has some TinkerToys, I bet he could do that." Don'tcha need another hand there, gal?" "You sure you got enough of them sticks workin'?" You're gonna mess up and poke yourself in the eye with one of them things." And so on. My patient didn't make comments but he laughed along with everyone else (a lesser being than myself would make him pay for that). The ancient speciman nearly laughed himself into an infarct. The office help came out to see what the joke was and a good time was had by all. Meanwhile, my glow turned a nice shade of tomato, my heart throbbed not, and my head deflated to its normal size. The lesson, of course, is to keep the sticks out of public view in the future and just maybe I'm not the hot stuff my evil inner being thinks I am. However...I did finish my Hallowig and it's a sight to behold. Dear, dear Ali is sending me a camera and someone is going to model it for me so I can post a picture. I am going to knit socks. I'm going to make Kate's Top-down Training Sock pattern from the Spring Knitty and proceed in a methodical fashion. I don't have the right size needles yet (hint, hint) and I have no sock yarn but I can still practice until the Yarn Fairy drops in.

The Last WIP Yarn

I did it. I finished my lion from hell. I spritzed it with water, blocked it, sewed on the eyes, trimmed the fuzz, attached it to some stiff cardboard, attached that to a piece of luan, and the whole mess weighs eighteen pounds. It's going to take a sixteen penny spike to support it. It's not framed yet so there's another pound. It looks quite spiffy, if I do say so myself and I can say so because I have no pictures and you will just have to take my word for it. I decided to goose it up a little so I used some 22 gauge black wire instead of yarn for whiskers and I crocheted some eyes instead of embroidering them and used little bits of felt for the speckles that the whiskers come out of instead of French knots. I will get some pictures on here one day. I need to get a camera quickly because after I get the camera it will no doubt be six months or so before I have mastered the whole digital picture taking and uploading technology involved.