Plan B

Well, of course it turns out my sister-in-law is having twins.
And of course my knitting plan for all the babies would become CLEARLY overly ambitious as it went on. I might have had a fighting chance if I only had to deliver knitted things shortly before the moms delivered the kids, but that's not the way modern society works. All of the summer babies are having May showers and I am up a creek.
Well, not entirely. It's good to have back up knit things, even if unintentionally.
My plans to knit sweater for most of the expected-s went down the tubes quickly. This is the only sweater I've started:

Half finished, as you can see.

The bottom needs finishing as well.

This is the Wee Lima again, which I find to be very like the Puerperium Cardigan I like so much. It's almost 2/3 done, just need to do the grey edging on the bottom and the sleeves. This will be going to a dear friend's second son, rather than a coworker. Sorry guys, them's the breaks. 

The reason this is only still partly finish is because I had to quickly shift gears for a baby shower for Coworker K-F and her twin boys. 

I'm quite pleased.

I am not a huge fan of matchy-matchiness for twins, particularly identical ones. Sure it's cute the first few years, but man it must be hard to tell them apart. So when planning for Coworker K-F's twins, I wanted something that coordinated tightly, but weren't the exact same thing. This also turned out to be a good way to stave off boredom. For those new to knitting, Second Sock Syndrome is a proven condition where you get done with one sock and realize that you have to knit another one, exactly like it. BORING. Therefore you put off casting on the second sock, or in this case, the second hat, in favor of more interesting projects. Even though these hats are precisely the same in construction and color pattern, just switching up the color kept me interested and engaged. 

This pattern is the Dizzy Baby Hat and I think it's charming. Nothing complicated whatsoever, except for jogless stripes. So, when you knit stripes, given the vertical stacking of rows that constitutes knitting, your stripes will end up uneven at the start of the row. 

See the weird jog at the first change from gray to blue at the bottom?

There are lots of tutorials on the interwebs for how to correct for this to knit "jogless stripes". I tried this out with the Dizzy, and found it annoying to do and it didn't really work. I am willing to accept I might have been doing it wrong, but with the single stripes it just looked bad. So I gave up. Trying to find an example I had to work at finding the jog, so I don't think it's aesthetically destructive. 

Once the Dizzy hats were done (thank God), I turned my attention to the other 2 coworkers having a shower soon. As in, next week. There was no way I was going to get anything like a sweater done. So I turned to my stash of mostly-completed things:

I know, it's terribly well organized.

And found this for Coworker D's first son:

Okay, this isn't quite done either.

It's the pieces of Reversible Stripes and Dots from my favorite baby hat book. I still need to sew them together, and it's a little big for a newborn, but I'm out of time. He'll grow into it, and Coworker D is a Michigan fan, so he'll like the colorway anyway :) I remember these being a lot harder to finish than I thought they should be. See all of my raggedy silk stitch embellishing around the dots? Yeah, a lot harder than it looks to make a smoothly-colored circle. Anyway, I just need to neatly whip stitch them together and we should be good to go. 

The last one I need by next week is something for Coworker E's second boy. I originally wanted to dig out a robins-egg-blue circle blanket I knit ages ago. But it's all packed up with a remodel at my parents' house, so no dice. So I started this little number:

It's basically the Dizzy pattern with wider stripes. Dull, but fast.

Also, if you're observant you'll realize that all of the newer knits: the sweater, the Dizzy hats, and that last stripey hat...are all in the same yarns. Dear God, I am so sick of mid-gray and that freaking blah baby blue. So done. Ready for something new. Looking down the knitting plan and available yarn... a blue-grey baby cardigan. Kill me now. 

At Least They Knit Up Quick...Right?

I am at that stage in life where everyone I know is mostly done getting married and many are starting to create small new humans. Last post I was in the process of counting them all up. It's been fun trying to organize my thoughts on all of this, and to group them for easiest explanation.

Not the prettiest of charts and there is a bit of a gap as my sister-in-law just found out she's pregnant, maybe with twins, unknown genders as of yet. Oy. Unknowns are not good for my knitting schedule.
Oh yes, I have a knitting schedule. Well, a plan anyway. Mostly. I have everyone laid out in two lists: priority by due date and priority by first kids vs multiples. For example, my two cousins who delivered their second and fourth child-s, respectively, in the last month or so, are unlikely to get anything handknit for these kids at all. Sad but true. My tall hubby's cousin who delivered her first child a month ago is still on the list though, especially as we'll be seeing her and Baby W later this year. All as-yet-unborn children are still on the list to receive something handknit from Random Lady Coworker/Aunt/Cousin E.
I also have a list of prospective possible knits for each above mentioned child, based on stash yarn available for use, gender, and speediness of pattern.
It did just strike me that I may have an irrational fondness for lists of all kinds. They make me feel more organized which makes the project feel more do-able, if still daunting. Remember the gigantic sock project that was the genesis of this blog? Yeah. Here we go again.
BUT... all of these things are being knit for babies, miniature humans, so they'll knit up quicker than the funky artsy lace shawl I was going to knit for my friend's wedding, right? They also shouldn't involve any techniques I'm not familiar with, like a variety of sock heels and toes. Even if I am planning on six-month-sized sweaters since 90% of the intended recipients are going to be spring and summer babies. Shouldn't make that much of a difference, right?
ALSO... I'm almost at the point where I can check two of the people off my list anyway! Coworker K's baby shower is supposed to be this Friday and the sweater for his 2nd child and 1st girl is currently damp-blocking on my floor.

The only true in-progress shot I took. I like how the needles match the  yarn, actually.

The completed sweater.

Lots of pins to keep the edge even and mostly not-ripply. 

Isn't it so cute? I really like how it turned out. It's the Puerperium Cardigan  again, which is one of my new favorite patterns for babies. The freebie version above is in a set weight and sized for newborns. They also have the Beyond Puerperium available, which is supposed to give instructions for different gauges of yarn and bigger sizes. I'm going to have to buy it soon.

This was the sweater I was in the midst of knitting when I realized this baby was due in June, so as a newborn she may not need a heavier sweater to wear... So I made it short sleeved and decided this would be a lesson (trying to learn, see?) and Coworker K could make do. 

I also realized halfway through that I wouldn't have enough pink yarn ( Caron Simply Soft left over from a scarf for a past roommate), so I dug up some gray to stripe in for length. I really love the color combination and the slight asymmetry with the solid button band cutting across the stripes. After it dries I just have to sew on the gray buttons I bought and this sweater will be complete!
Next on my list is Coworker S who is having her first baby and first girl in late May. I wasn't sure about getting another sweater done before her eventual baby shower, especially not in a 6 month size. During a conversation with Coworker S, she mentioned that she wasn't crafty (poor girl) but had pinned lots of cute little hats on her Pinterest board knowing she wouldn't likely be able to make them. So up went my eager hand and I was set on my course to make cute, trendy hats in mint and purple, her favorite colors. My plan is to do a set of hats, one in each size up to a year. The purple newborn one is in the works now and I just sewed up the last of the 3-ish months size.

Super on-trend right now, I understand.

I think it's super cute. It's a Bow Baby Hat and is frankly kind of uninteresting. It's a straightforward stocking cap in miniature with a garter stitch bow. I picked up some Bernat Satin in the requisite colors and it was mostly done in a few days. It's a great pattern for new knitters though. Minimal purling, lots of knitting, and a great result. I may do another hat with the leftover mint yarn, we'll have to see. I have a 6 month old size hat that I knit a while ago just for this eventuality, so I'll add that to the pile as well.

Isn't it sweet?

This is the Cherry-O! out of this fantastic book:

Seriously, it's great.

I use this book a lot. It's got a lot of fantastic ideas for customizing cute small people hats with a minimum of fuss and bother. I used it a lot in the past when my desire to knit things for babies first sprang into terrible being and my knitting skill was less developed. 

ANYWAY... That's almost two projects nearly done, out of at least ten desired. 

IN REALITY THOUGH... I'm screwed, aren't I? :) Still having fun though, so onward and upward.

The Power of Not Learning

As always, it started so well...

So, for Pair O' Socks Number 3, I went to my modest library of knitting books (mostly given as gifts from well-meaning, supportive, NON-knitters) and this fantastic book:

I love that I somehow managed to give the model redeye.
Here's the pattern site on Ravelry

It really is a good book of cute and classic accessories. Useful for my purposes was the couple of sock patterns. Growing up in a house with dedicated ballet dancers, and marrying into a family with dedicated ballet dancers, the bright and adorable Tutu slipper was too apt to pass up. I bought a dusty purple yarn on sale at Hobby Lobby on Black Friday (seriously, who goes yarn shopping on Black Friday?) and got going.
Now, the great thing about toe-up socks or slippers is you can try them on as you go. Remember how I estimated  my foot length on that last pair of socks, completely negating the great thing about toe-up socks? Uh huh. I distinctly remember getting towards the end of the foot part of my first slipper and thinking, 'Huh, I should try these on and see if they fit. Well, I don't know of the heel shaping is going to add any length to this, so I better stop a bit short in case they do.' *facepalm* I did the same thing while knitting the strap that goes over the top of your foot. I was in the back seat of a small car in January with 3 coworkers. I did NOT want to take off my winter boots and heavy socks in order to try on the slipper and test the length of the in-progress strap. Nor did I want to stop knitting. So I guessed. Again.

I do still like the color.

The left one is at least done being knit. I looked up the magic loop-y cast on thing-y in order to get the seamless toe. I found out that this kind of heel, probably a short-row heel, does not add any length to the foot. I discovered that I had knit the strap too short, but could not fix it due to having finished the picot edging. Dear God, picot edging is so boring.

Cute, but it takes forever. 

The slipper is very open, so it will not stay on your foot at all without the strap and a ribbon that is supposed to gather through the eyelet row, just below the picot edging. So the left slipper just needs some finishing touches to be complete.
I tell you though, nothing is as depressing and project-completion-stopping as finding out you knit something too small and that it would take AGES of frogging to fix it. Seriously. The edging is all one piece around the too-short strap and to lengthen the foot I would have to take out the whole heel. This project sat dormant for quite a while. I finally decided to just make the other slipper and figure out the left slipper issue later.

See!? I totally cast on the second slipper...

Uh huh. I did just try on the other slipper and have decided I can make it work. I'm thinking about snipping the too-short strap and doing a thicker coordinating ribbon strap instead of a knit one, because I'm lazy and don't want to have to reknit 3/4 of a freaking ballet slipper and that bloody picot edging...
But back to the right slipper. Remember how a few posts ago I was bemoaning the human urge to reproduce? Yeah. I was already getting Second Sock Syndrome with this project anyway and then I realized how many freaking people around me were having children. It has also only gotten worse. I decided to make a final count of the ones I know about:
4 coworkers, 1 having twins, 2 with their first kids.
3 cousins, 2 have already delivered(probably out of luck on the new knitting then), and 1 with his first.
2 in-laws, both their firsts, 1 already here and 1 very long awaited and hard-worked-for.
1 friend, second kid, high risk.
11. Freaking. Babies. Dear. God.

Sigh...

I've been knitting for multiple years. I promise I have. I've made successful changes to patterns in terms of fitting and stuff. So how did it go so wrong?

My second pair of socks started out well. I picked a simple toe-up pattern, as a foil to my top-down first pair. I went with "Socks on a Plane" by Laura Linneman. I liked the little bit of cabling to keep me interested and I liked the idea of being able to try it on for fit as I went along.

Let's examine it, shall we?

Pros
1. Toe-up. You can indeed try it on as you go, and that's helpful
2. I cast on the second sock immediately upon finishing the first sock.
3. I also carefully examined the first sock and wrote down after how many cables I started the heel gusset, when I started adding some increases in the leg for more room, and when to start the cuff so I could replicate the first as closely as possible.

Cons
First mistake: Yarn. I went with a variegated yarn given to me by my mother-in-law. I've lost the ball band, but it's mostly wool and in a great colorway.



The greens and shades of blue is great. But can you see the cable in this? I can't. It just muddles the self-striping nature of the yarn.

Mistake No. 2: Estimation. I was supposed to start increasing for the heel gusset about an inch or so shorter than I wanted the foot to be. Well, whatever I was thinking when I did that on my first sock, I was off. That's pretty typical when I estimate. The foot of Sock #1 is too short for my foot.

Mistake No. 3: Doubting the pattern. I didn't understand the heel shaping instructions for Sock #1 and I interpreted it rather liberally and creatively. And completely incorrectly, clearly.

It's so ugly.

And proportionally, so off. 

Good God, it's so bad. But I didn't know what it should look like till later, so I just left it and continued blithely on.

Mistake No. 4. I then changed my approach with Sock #2's heel and trusted the written instructions. I was happy to find out my second interpretation worked, though I wasn't thrilled at first about how it looked. 

It grew on me though.

I was happy it worked, and so continued on. I held up the 2 socks to compare them. The foot of Sock #2 was longer than Sock #1, which was good. But after completing the heel of Sock #2 and a few rounds of knitting for the leg, I was decidedly closer to the leg length of Sock #1 than I should have been. I ditched most of my comparison notes and skipped to the cuff.

Mistake No.5: I cast off too tightly. I knit tight. I know this. I have a bad habit of casting off tightly. I know this. Yet I hardly ever correct for this. On this instance, I'll blame worrying about the outcome of this pair of socks that I've spent a lot of time on for my inattention. 

Mistake No. 6: Toes. I somehow managed to delude myself that Kitchener stitch could be done on two cast on edges. After extensive Internet research I have found that there is a way to do it, but when I was anxiously trying to finish these I didn't realize this. Trying to pick up stitches along the cast on edge failed due to anxiety, so I just threaded a tapestry needle and whip stitched the toes closed on both. I have also since learned that "your preferred cast-on method for toe-up socks (ex: Judy's Magic Cast On)" did not mean "just any old cast on you like", but that there are actual techniques meant for this kind of project that would not result in open toes. *face palm. 

Result

Well, they're done, anyway.

Dear God.

The upshot of all of this is that I basically managed to knit two different socks from the exact same pattern. Sock #1 is too small and so is tight and pulls disgracefully around my foot, leaving large gaps to let the wind in and distorting the design further. Sock #2 fits more nicely, especially around the heel, but I had to work very hard to get the cuff over my ankle and instep, as well as almost needing to grab scissors to get the thing off again. Sigh...

TO BE VERY CLEAR:

I like this pattern. I like the light, simple cabling and the toe-up method. I will use this pattern again. I just will learn from my mistakes and do better next time (hopefully).

These particular socks are going (sadly) in the garbage bin. Or I suppose I should frog the yarn and not be wasteful. But I'm so unhappy at these socks that I don't really want to.

The Metallic Scent of Failure

Complete and utter failure.
As I did hedge in my first post, this project was ambitious but ultimately rubbish.
I blame the human urge to reproduce. If I had not been sidetracked by all of my friends deciding to have babies and require handknit baby blankets, I might have had a fighting chance.
But not likely. My ability to juggle all the adult stuff I'm told I need to do, such as forty hours of work a week, laundry, housekeeping, shopping for groceries, hanging out with friends and family, spending time with Tall Hubby, etc, is appalling. Thank God I'm an introvert. Anyway, my ability to take on an enormous and ambitious knitting project on top of regular daily life was pretty much doomed from the start. Seven months in and I am an inch and finishing up away from a complete set of socks. Oy.
So unless someone knows of 11 sock patterns that I can make on 3 hours per week in 5 months, I'm calling this project failed.
I am completely okay with this. I knew from the start I was flying close to the sun. And now that I am officially failing this, I can move on with my life and blithely keep working on the green leafy baby blanket for Dave and Chelsea.
So anyway, let this blog stand as a testament to high ambitions never to be reached. It may become an extension of my Ravelry page, but I have no idea yet. I intend to keep knitting socks, just not on any timetable. And so it will become a lifetime in handknit socks. Fitting punishment, I think.

Well Begun is Half Done...

Update: I have finished a whole sock. I am the proud maker of a sock. It even mostly fits.
Update part 2: I have turned the heel on the second sock. No second sock syndrome here, mostly! Finish the foot, toe shaping, Kitchener stitch to close, weave in ends, okay that's a few more steps than I thought still to accomplish. But hey, I am well past halfway with my first ever pair of socks. That's worthy of celebration in my books!

Turning 90 Degrees

So I've always been told, or just assumed, that turning the heel was the hardest part of the sock. You know, big fancy techniques like gussets and picking up stitches. Yeah right. Nothing to it! 

Okay, having done some quick Internet research, a gusset heel is a knit heel flap, short rows(which are in fact scary in theory), picking up stitches to attach the heel flap to the instep, and decreases to make all that work. If that's what just happened in my knitting, no big deal. Piece o' cake. 

See?

Heel flap (in ribbing for enhanced fit)

Short row heel (not as scary as I thought)

Doesn't the variegation pattern look nice on the heel?

It looks more heel-like now!

Picked-up stitches along the heel flap. 

I think it's shaping up nicely. Pun intended. 

It's looking really nice, I think. 

Now it's just a short jaunt down the foot(no joke, I have really small feet, as evidenced by the clerk who tried to sell me kids shoes yesterday), and toe shaping. Then on to Sock #2. Onwards!