Blue Fur

Done, again. Or almost – I was waiting to cut the yarn and finish it off until I see if it fits the intended recipient. Also, I need to figure out how to get rid of that nipple at the top. (!) It doesn't look quite how I envisioned it, and I am afraid it is going to be too small. it fits Auden pretty well (though she has a big head) and the cast-on edge feels tight to me. But I'm not ripping this one all the way out; I'm not even sure I'm willing to rip out to the beginning of the decreases if it's not deep enough. Tired of the blue fur!!!

Pattern: Rolled Brim Chemo Cap from Head Huggers with reduced # of cast on stitches (70).
Yarn: Berroco Chinchilla, one skein.
Needles: INOX/Prym U.S. 8 dpn

See the pretty chemo cap?

No? You sure? You looked really really hard? Hmmm, then it must not be there. Funny, since I FINISHED it last night ... how could I possibly be back on row 6?
This is one of those stories I'd rather forget: how I knitted an entire hat in Berroco Chinchilla, got down to my last six stitches on three needles, threaded the leftover yarn on a tapestry needle to run it through the last stitches and ... they weren't there. The needles had slipped out. And the yarn is SO furry that I could not find the stitches.
Probably, there was a way to salvage my work then. But instead, I pulled out a few rows to see if I could find them better below. (These are decrease rows at the top of the hat, so of course every row I pull out means MORE stitches to (not) find.)
I cannot see any stitches among the dark blue fur. I try picking them up anyway, but have no idea what I'm getting, and I can't believe I'll ever get them all. I pull out some more rows, and the problem seems to grown insurmountably large. I whine and cry to my husband, who is suitably sympathetic, and pull out the entire hat.
I'm SO annoyed with myself! And I hate my slippery clanky metal size 8 needles. Hated them anyway for the way they clankety-clanked the whole way through; hate them more now for losing my stitches.
The yarn is lovely and soft, even if it does release a fine mist of blue fibers that tickle my nose and coat my clothes. I'm hoping the ripping and re-knitting will not reduce it to a scraggly mess. I also seem to have gotten the whole hat (at least last time) out of one ball, so I'm hoping the store will take the other one back, or at least exchange it for a different color (or some wooden needles?) I can't possibly face the trauma of reknitting this hat AGAIN.
*sigh*
It probably would have been a good moment to take up serious drinking.

p.s.
I'll post a picture as soon as there is more of it to see ...

Gray Sock

This isn't the greatest picture (no, really) but you get an idea of the pattern ... you can see it a lot more when it is slightly stretched, which in theory it will be on the recipient's leg.
I think I am going to end the ribs when I get to the heel, even though the pattern calls for them to continue all down the top of the foot. Maybe because the gauge is so fine, and there's just one purl instead of a wider rib, it feels slightly beady inside the sock to me. And while I'm hoping the above-mentioned slight stretch will take care of that, I don't want to risk it being uncomfortable under the shoe.

At least it is progressing far faster than I had feared, due in part to a nasty virus that kept me from doing much besides sitting on the couch all week.

That's all I've got. Blog posting doesn't get much more exciting than this, does it?

Billions and Billions of Stitches ....

I see them stretching far ahead into the future. I'm doing the ribbing on Size 0 needles, which I've never used before – maybe that will make the Size 1s seem pleasantly large when I get to the leg. But probably not. These are for my dad, and it may not be the wisest move ever to be trying new yarn gauge and needle sizes when the intended recipient is 3,000 miles away. (I wonder what the math is on how much longer it will take the same knitter to finish a sock on 1s instead of 2s.)

To motivate myself, I have signed up for Socktoberfest 2006. It's my first knitalong, and it seems appropriately undemanding. But since I was casting on for these anyway last night, and I have another pair of socks in progress, it seemed like a good fit.