teamkaty

Labor done

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  Originally uploaded by teamkaty

As a holiday, Labor Day has been kind of lost to me in the past couple of years.  Its nicer significances--up the proletariat! Summer's last gasp! Hey, a day off!--have been subsumed by a different agenda: how to get the hell out of my neighborhood.  See, I'm one block away from the route of the West Indian Day Parade--New York's biggest.  When I lived at a safe distance, I loved this parade, primarily for the food (in all my years of attending, I have never managed to catch the impressive costumes--the timing of this event is best described as capricious).  Now it's more about subway closings, people pissing on my stoop, and hours of window-rattling music.

Having now officially come out as old and grumpy, let me say again, it's Labor Day!  My labors, let me show them to you!

Sandra's progress shots of her beautiful blue Marigolds reminded me that I never blogged my completed pair.  These socks were such a pleasure to knit--I eagerly snatched them back up as soon as my sockpal socks* were completed.  Still loving the happy combo of Pam's awesome pattern and Yarntini self-striping.  I did mine toe-up; Sandra's are top-down and I think that may work a little better. The keen-eyed may notice that while the striping and pattern match almost exactly on my feet, some fudging may have been involved on the legs.  Call it artistic license. 

While I am confessing, I will also admit that I frogged twice to get the heels centered.  Because I can be anal like that.  But all that practice served to improve my short-row heel technique--no holes!

OK, the helicopters have been circling since 11:30 and more noise is yet to come.  There are other FOs I need to write about, but for now I'm going to shut up the apartment, apologize to the cats, and flee.  Happy Labor Day, everyone!

*Speaking of which, I got a lovely email from my pal.  Look, her socks fit perfectly!  Obviously her calves are slimmer than mine. 

Hmm, her floors are nicer, too...

Double-knit: The trend continues

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Originally uploaded by teamkaty

It's official: I am now incapable of knitting a sock in one take.  The year is nearly half over, my FO count is puny, and it's because I knit each pair of socks at least twice.  Gah, so this is kind of what it's like for you perfectionists, huh?  Nutty. 

For example: pictured above is my weekend's progress on Raspberry Ripple, made from delicious Yarntini self-striping in the Marigold pattern from the ever-fabulous Flint Knits.  However, what you see no longer exists, because I frogged the whole damn thing to start over in a bigger size.  This was totally my fault: I started with the medium, got about halfway up the toe, and decided they looked huge. Mindful of Flint's admonition that the pattern has a lot of stretch to it, I scaled back to the small--no, still too big.  Extra-small?  OK.  All the while willfully forgetting that a provisional cast-on does tend to make things look enormous.  By the time I'd done one repeat of the lace I could tell they were categorically too narrow, but I was out of town and hadn't brought the instructions and this is one of those crack-like patterns--I just couldn't stop!

The kicker here, of course, is that I have size 9 feet.  Extra-wide.

In the cold light of Brooklyn I could no longer fool myself, so yesterday morning on the train I wound it all back into a ball.  It's a fast knit, though, so I'm already up to the middle of the foot--size medium!  If anything, the stripes are working even better with the pattern now.  The downside is that the loose twist of Yarntini isn't the best for multiple froggings.  Note to self: when tackling the skein of Pure Fall, get it right the first time. 

I'm also just a few rows away from completing my Sporty Shorty socks. Again, what you see here has been revised.  This was my first stab at short-row heels, and they are pretty holey, but I figured I would live to improve my technique on another pair.  I was decreasing for the second toe when I saw Heather's maiden short-row voyage and was all shamed and such.  My first sock was already Kitchenered, so it remains my cautionary tale.  But the second one I frogged back to the heel and re-knit using the much-ballyhooed Misocrafty tutorial, and whether because of the slipping or just the extra practice, it came out much better.  Props are also due to cosmicpluto's well-illustrated version for helping me finally understand wrapping--Misocrafty's refers you back to Wendy Knits for that, and I found those wrapping instructions completely opaque.

Did I ever mention that I finished my Sunshine in Shades socks?  Well, I did, weeks ago, but the pictures I took aren't the greatest.  Whatever!  Here they are, done done done.  Yes, three times over.  At least.