Double Trouble

I’ve had some knitting setbacks as of late – involving Boy 2’s easy raglan sweater and Pam’s piquant socks.

First, remember the sweater that wouldn’t fit over Boy 2’s head?I executed Plan B: adding a neckline again, this time an applied i-cord edging on size 10 needles (the sweater itself was on 9s).  The result looked acceptable… …but it still doesn’t go over his head.  So I’m going to rip that out.

My next plan (Plan C) is to do what everyone says can’t be done.  I’m going to run a cable or a lifeline or something through a round of stitches 3 or 4 rows below the edge, and then CUT the preceding rounds out.  I think I’ll still have live stitches, and I’ll try again with the i-cord edging.

If that doesn’t work, I’ll just unravel the entire thing and start again (that would be Plan D).  The way I see it, it can’t hurt to try the crazy Plan C if Plan D is your only remaining option.

As for Pam’s socks… I have knit the leg and am poised to begin the heel flap, and they are simply too tight.  S1 couldn’t get them on at all.  I can get them on my ankle, but I know from experience that once I put a heel on these babies, they won’t fit anymore.  So they are going to be completely frogged.  Here is what I have so far: I have not knit on these for about a week as I consider my next step.  First, I need to do more reading about how to knit colorwork.  I think I’ve been catching the long floats all wrong, but I’m not yet 100% certain of that.  I read this long blog post on dealing with floats, and I’ve determined that I’m definitely catching them too frequently.  I was worried about the really long floats – like 9-11 stitches long – and I would catch the float every 3-4 stitches.  But some Ravelry forum browsing indicated that with fingering weight yarn, I really needn’t catch floats unless they are more than 7 stitches (which some of mine would be).  Catching the floats, especially the way I’m doing it, tightens up the fabric.  It makes it really durable, but not very flexible.

As much as I hate to step back from Pam’s socks, I think I need to get out of the deep end of the pool and go back to the shallow end.  I’m not in the baby pool anymore, but I’m feeling decidedly out of my element.  So I’m going to READ more before casting on again, and I’m also consider knitting the Mad for Plaid socks before Pam’s socks:

Mad for Plaid will give me a chance to practice stranded knitting but it’s an intermediate step, in terms of difficulty.

If anyone has recommendations for a good book or website about stranded knitting, I’m very open to suggestions!

Yarn delivery

After a deliciously agonizing period of deliberation, I’ve made some choices about solid sock yarns from Simply Socks Yarn Company (part of my winnings!) for two projects in my near future.

First, Pam chose this Tangled Garden pattern for her prize socks: We picked the colors “pink” and “wheatgrass” for these:

And S1 settled on the colors “green,” “mocha,” “brick,” and “chocolate” for her Mad for Plaid fraternal quadruplet socks:

These are going to be FUN!