There’s Only One Way Out of a Knitting Quagmire

So. Socks. I knit a pair, remember?

In case you were wondering, it’s no longer that green outside my windows. There’s a distinct orange tinge to everything and a chilly breeze darting around. It’s getting to be that “knitting weather” everyone is talking about. I keep seeing socks on my blog reader (SpinningWoollyYarns, for one. The Yarn Harlot, for another). I’m in a virtual sock knitting club (check out Maggs, Hannah and Paula). I just received a package of amazing sock yarn! I should be casting on in a frenzy, right?

Well, I haven’t. I am stuck in knitting quagmire. I am making decent progress on my Color Dipped Hat, but man is it slow going. Fisherman’s rib, I am learning, is wonderfully thick, squishy and stretchy. It is made that way via what is, for me, an excruciatingly slow process. Each row really only adds half the stitches (since you knit or purl into the stitch below half the time) so each physical row of knitting takes two rounds to complete. It’s slower than regular 1×1 ribbing sooo…yeah. It’s taking a long time. And, I’m past the two color portion so I don’t have as much visual interest to keep me motivated.

My other quagmire is the Lacy Loo I’ve now started three times. First time, I messed up the stitch count in an obvious place and in a way I couldn’t fix. Second, I got to a point (thankfully early) in the pattern that wasn’t making sense. I posted in the designer’s group and got a response back but I had screwed things up just enough (and struggled a little initially on the short rows) that I decided to just rip it out and restart it again. I got the right circular needles for it so the going got a little better after that:

My problem now is that, even though I got going and it’s all making sense now, I am continuing to question my yarn choice for this. It’s really more worsted than aran, and the pattern gauge is really closer to bulky, so it’s knitting up loose. It just might not be ideal for a three year old…but that said, it’s kinda pretty and would look really sweet on her with leggings.

My other quagmires all have to do with either blocking, sewing on buttons or making tassels. I can’t swear that any of them will ever get done, and none is really inspiring enough to keep me going!

So, in light of all that stuff going on, and the amount of Christmas knitting I’m still hoping to accomplish, and the thought that maybe someday soonish I’ll go back to work and stop having such a ridiculous abundance of time to knit, it’s been hard to give myself the liberty of casting on for a pair of socks for myself. So when Maggs suggested in her Thursday sock post to maybe put the sock club on hiatus until January, I thought that made a lot of sense. But…socks! They keep calling to me! The sock pattern I got from knittinginfrance is toe-up, and I need to knit some more socks so I’ll be ready for that! Paula is making Hermione’s Everyday Socks, and that’s the pattern I was thinking I’d do next! It’s going to be cold soon! Everyone’s knitting socks and they’re all so cool!

So, screw Christmas–I’m makin’ SOCKS!