Old Socks

Hi everyone!  I've been sick and haven't felt up to blogging.  Mostly I just wanted to sleep.  But I'm better and back to work.

While I was sick, I tried to work on the stole for my friend but apparently wasn't up to the task.  I'm at a part where I'm to make little nodules or bumps in the fabric.  To do this, they want you to make 7 stitches (K1, YO, K1, YO, K1, YO, K1) in one stitch one the right side and perl them all together when you go back across on the wrong side. Well, that's actually harder then it sounds...at least when I'm sick, it seemed harder.  Anyway, getting the needle to catch ALL 7 of those stitches to perl them together wasn't a task I was up for.  Some how or another, I kept missing one of the loops in the middle.  And of course, I didn't notice until I was two or three rows further along.  So, to keep my sanity, I placed stitch markers on the ones I messed up (yes there was more than one!) and put it aside until I felt up to ripping out the rows to the first mess up so I could try them again.  I'm actually thinking of going to our local yarn shop, The Gourmet Yarn Co., and asking them for a little help.  They have these days where you can bring in any of your projects and they'll help you with them.  I could always post on one of the bulletin boards for help on Ravelry.com.  I'm sure there is someone on there that could be of help.  (If anyone wants to friend me in Ravelry, my name there is....wait for it....Sofyann!!)

Well, the stole episode is what brings me to today's topic - Old Socks.  When I say 'old socks', I don't mean socks that you've found under the bed in your child's room that you haven't seen in three or four years and they've grown so crusty that they could stand up on their own.  No...the old socks I'm referring to are the ones that I've started knitting and then put aside so that I could work on other projects.  Socks, for me, are those go to garments that I can work on anytime, they don't take up much room in my purse, and (usually) are easy to pick back up after a month or two of ignoring them. 

Well, going through my socks, I came across a pair I started a couple years ago for the same friend I'm making the stole for.  I had totally forgotten them!  So I thought I'd pick them back up and see if I couldn't finish them for her.  I opened up the bag and what did I find but a pair of two at a time socks and they'd been forgotten just at the end of the heel flap.  I couldn't believe I'd left it there!  That is probably the worst place for me to leave off.  I can't remember if it's long enough, if it's ready for me to start the short rows, or what.  AND that's the least of the problems.  I'm using a mock cable pattern on them and the sticky note marking where I had left off in the pattern lost its sticky and fell off.  I'm sure I could figure it out, but when I pulled them out, my poor sick mind looked at that and decided right there they were beyond help and that I should just rip them out and start over!  I didn't, though, cooler heads prevailed, but I will need to sit down this weekend and get those socks past the heal stage so that if they are neglected again, I won't be in such a worried state.

So...instead I picked up a pair of socks that I'm knitting for myself.  They were also in a similar pattern (except these are also a bit lacy) but the sticky on the sticky note marking my spot was still in tact and I was able to pick right back up where I'd left off.  Needless to say, those are the ones I worked on while I was housebound.

Alas, our time together is over.  Time for me to head back to the real world and my job.  Enjoy your Friday!