can you say ‘tension’?

well you might pronounce it ‘gauge’ but whatever. I don’t do tension squares. It’s all my mother’s fault, she set me a bad non-blocking non-swatching non-grafting example. So I blame her for the Great Irish Socks Disaster. Because I did a lot of travelling last week (train to and from London, magical mystery trip to Wales with the coach driver following his satnav down narrow blocked lanes) I had plenty of time to knit these up and had both socks done except the toes.

Got son to try them on on Sunday. Oh dear. They won’t go over his legs. I’d cast on 40 stitches on 3mm needles, and assumed all would be well (my tension is usually a little on the loose side). Oh dear.

It turns out my tension with this yarn is 22 stitches to 10 cm instead of 26 – 28. Gah. Can’t frog as I have been cutting the yarn as I go, so will have to find an Irish child with slim legs. But I am sick of the sight of them for now and have cast on some different socks, this time for Rob. And yes I checked the tension – as I have several socks already knitted from this yarn I’ve measured the stocking stitch soles of those rather than knitting a separate tension square.

These are garter rib socks from Sensational Knitted Socks, in Stroud SuperSock (colourway = Ebb).

frustration

having suddenly decided to make jaywalkers for my mum’s Mother’s Day present, I had to get moving on them (Mother’s Day is on 2 March in the UK this year) so cast them on this evening. Two rows in, I’ve lost one of my 2.25 mm dpns. My only set in that size. Aaaaargh. I have turned the living room upside down looking for them but no sign. The question is, do I get something else for Mother’s Day or do I rush out to the not very local LYS in the morning for another set (actually I don’t even know if they sell bamboo dpns).

he shrunk them!

Normally I’m superwash all the way for socks but the yarn was lovely and perfect for the pattern I wanted to use for Rob’s Christmas socks. I told him they were hand wash only. I put a yarn care label in with the socks (along with the ball band which also has the washing instructions on). And why does he think they’ve been regularly seen drying on the wool airer over the bath? Does he think I have some kind of sock-washing fetish? That I would rather hand wash socks that could perfectly well go in washing machine? Well obviously he did or else he wouldn’t've chucked them in the machine with everything else.

Oh well at least Owen now has a nice pair of warm cosy felted socks that fit him nicely.

like my mum always told me …

Measure twice, cut block once.

Note to self: when knitting the second sock, don’t rely on your notes of how many rows you’ve worked on the first sock. Measure one against the other, or risk realising it’s a centimetre short after you’ve blocked them, and having to reknit the toe and then block them all over again and so now risk them not being posted in good time for Dad’s birthday. Bah.