Jeans and Sneakers

So. The Two-Toed Socks are done. First, the pics, then the explanation. Sorry for the low lighting, it’s the best I could do.

The pattern itself is clever. It’s knit from the top down, and when you get to where you want to place the heel, you knit a piece of waste yarn on half of the tube, then go back to your main yarn, and knit over it, and continue the tube all the way down to the toe. Knit the toe, and come back to the waste yarn. I found if you pick up the stitches before taking out the waste yarn, it’s less stressful, since there’s no danger of dropping stitches. That’s a good thing. Take out the waste yarn and knit another toe. Fabulous. Though, I had issues. At the corners of teh heels, there were huge holes that I had to sew up afterwards. That combined with the socks being knitted in two different colors, left too many ends to weave in at the end for my taste. I never know where to put the stupid things, and they almost always end up poking up somewhere on the RIGHT side of the fabric. :[

Here’re some shots of the socks in action. Since they’re gift socks, I was wearing socks under them. Also, keep in mind that these are socks for a dude, so they’re huge on my feet.

I don’t think I’ll be knitting another pair of these. It was a good learning experience, but as the note I wrote to my friend will tell you, I believe these socks are a sub-par example of my knitting skills. I know that doesn’t really make sense, because if I were a fantastic knitter, I could make this pattern work and rock. But I’m not happy with how they came out, and I’m kind of embarassed to send these to him. I promised him if he doesn’t like them that I’ll make him a much better pair out of regular sock wool.

At least they look like socks though. I suppose things could be worse. I hope the color matches his shirt. These pictures really don’t do it justice, it’s a beautiful dark mellow blue color. I have plenty of this color (and the black, and the horrible turquoise that was originally purchased) left over. I have no idea what I’ll do with it though, I don’t especially like this yarn. I’m sure there’s worse out there, but I wasn’t impressed. It was hard on my hands and right in the middle of the second black ball, they’d knotted it together. I mean, really, come on now, does this happen often? That a yarn manufacturer comes to the end of some unfathomably long strand of yarn in the middle of a ball, and they just tie on a new strand so that they can finish out the ball? Do they realize that that leaves a little knot RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY KNITTING?! What the hell is wrong with these people? I digress. But it’s wrong.

Ok, on to other business. I’ve come to a couple of decisions late this week. First and foremost, I’ve decided that I will not buy myself a new camera or a spinning wheel until I’ve paid off my debt. There’s not that much of it left, and with this job, I can easily pay it off by the end of the year. I’ve let it drag out for far too long, and I’d like it gone, so that when I do make purchases for myself, I no longer feel guilty because I’m spending money that could be going towards my debt. This is ridiculous. I’ll get the debt gone, and then I can buy whatever my little heart desires. So there.

There is a little clause to that though. I will still allow myself to occasionally buy yarn. I mean, it might seem like a lot to spend at the time (and not always, a lot of the time I find deals on yarn, or just get acrylic cause I <3 my washing machine.) but yarn keeps me busy for months. Seriously. I can take my time with my projects, and actually enjoy them, or I could rush through some of them, but still, that’s spending valuable time making something with my own two hands, that I could otherwise be spending looking at things that I shouldn’t be buying and contemplating buying them.

Which brings me to my next point of business. Now that my friend’s socks are done, I had a whole bunch of things I wanted to start on. I wanted to finish the pair of Karen’s socks that I started right before my friend decided he wanted socks. I wanted to start on the hat from the latest Knitty that I’m coveting. I wanted to start on the Jaywalkers that I’m planning to use my unique skein of Cherry Tree Hill yarn for. I wanted to make socks for Rob, and I wanted to finish a washcloth I started for him last night (I needed a small change. Size 7 needles totally feel weird after knitting on Size 4’s for so long!). I also wanted to finish, sometime before her birthday, the sweater I’m making for Rob’s Mom. AND. . .I’ve been searching for a suitable project to make for my Mom. I knew whatever I made her had to be really nice. I finally decided yesterday that I was going to make her a Birch Shawl from Rowan 34. I bought that issue and some Kidsilk Haze in a light purple color. . .my mom’s fav.

But an email from Knit Picks this morning changed all that. Guess what I forgot existed? Mother’s Day. Holy crap. Now, not only do I feel the need to finish Rob’s Mom’s sweater by May 14th, I also need to make this shawl. Now, I’m kind of lucky, because this shawl is gorgeous, and everyone says it’s really simple. My first attempt at lace. . .on a deadline. I must seriously have some head issues. So, I think I’ll be working exclusively on those two projects for the next three weeks.

I finished His Dark Materials!! How amazingly satisfying those books were! They definitely made me feel as if I knew the characters personally, and when I wasn’t reading, I found myself frequently thinking about them, and the story. I don’t think I’ll be picking up another book for awhile, I’ve got deadlines after all.

I’ve got other things I’d like to mention, but this post is becoming epic length, and I think I should end it. (That and it’s 2 am. We’re supposed to get up “early” tomorrow to go see Silent Hill before we go to dinner at Rob’s Mom’s.)

Oh! But one quick thing before I’m done. The roomate didn’t move out today. At first this afternoon he said just before Rob went out to start helping him with his things into the Bronco, “You guys know this isn’t like, my last night here, right? I’m going to do it gradually.” Then he and Rob decided that they’d have to make too many trips using just Rob’s Bronco II, so the roomate would just wait and move out during the week with his relative’s big truck. Damnit. I can’t wait until he’s just gone. I cooked dinner tonight and had to work around the filth. Rob made it pretty apparrent that he wasn’t very happy with the roomate either, to the point where I think the roomate actually started to notice, which he usually doesn’t. He’ll pretend he does, but he doesn’t really care. But today, he seemed stung that Rob had so much pent up anger towards him. I just laughed.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 23rd, 2006 at 1:04 am and is filed under Knitting, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.