Good Morning!

This is what I saw when I stepped outside a few minutes ago. Not a bad way to start the morning.

Sock it to me!

After several false starts on the toe, I finally finished the cursed socks! More photos on Flickr. I wanted to post right away, so I didn't sweat over the photo shoot. As you can see, I didn't even get off the couch.

I learned several things from these socks....

1. I need to find a better cast-on for a top down sock. This one is ok, but on is ever so slightly tighter than the other. It's not noticable when they're on, I noticed it as I was stretching them side by side. Not a big deal.

2. On my next set of socks, I'll decrease maybe 2 more rounds in the gussett. I have really high insteps and the socks should have a smaller/tighter instep.

3. I'm going to knit from the toe up the next time. I had way too much yarn left over. Left over yarn is not a bad thing (maybe fingerless wrist warmers?) but I would have made the socks just a wee bit longer.

4. As for the toe...I did a search on the internet and found the chimney toe method by Lucy Neatby. It's about the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. Basically, when you get to the end of the sock you switch to a contrasting yarn and knit about 8 rounds with no decreases, and then cast off. Shut up, it really looks like a chimney! Then you poke the chimney inside the sock and line up the sock stitches and graft them together. Once the grafting is done, you ravel the chimney and voila, a perfect toe! Check out her site, she has tons of great ideas.

I was so pleased with the toe on the second sock that I frogged the toe on the first sock and reknit and grafted with the chimney method.

Thanks, Lucy! You've made me so very happy! On to project next....

Tip Toe

There are 16 stitches left on the needles of my sock. That means only one thing, time to graft the toe. I hate grafting. It just never seems to come out the way it should. I end up with a weird lump at the beginning and it's inevitable that I come up with one extra stitch so things don't lay right. I say to myself, "who will know? It's the toe, you'll never see it." Well my toes will see it. So, I'll do it over as many times as I need to in order to get it right. These socks are too beautiful to have sloppy toes.

The reason I didn't get the second sock done Sunday night is because I frogged the toe decrease. I knit it with a nylon reinforcing yarn and it came out really stiff and thick. I wasn't happy, so out it came. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right, right? Right.

Photos tomorrow, I promise!

An Apology to My Sister

I must apologize to my sister. Some time ago, I presented her with a gift of a skein of Mountain Colors sock yarn in the Northern Lights colorway, a pack of bamboo DPNs and a sock pattern designed by a somewhat local knitting expert. My sister, Karen, has never knit socks before. Many hats and scarves, but no socks. I thought this would be a good starter pattern that would get her hooked. The pattern is interesting enough to prevent stockinette burn out, yet the stitch repeat is simple and easy to remember. I can picture the Karen picking up her new new bamboo DPNs and wondering if she should knit with them or skewer some shrimp for the barbie.

Taking a deep breath, Karen casts on the recommended 72 stitches, being careful not to twist the stitches at the join. (She knows about twisted stitches, you see, there was this hat...) She breezes through the first inch of 1x1 rib. The hand painted yarn is looking good, but she's anxious to get to the meat of the pattern. As she knits the ankle of the slip stitch sock, she marvels at how the little bits of golden yellow miraculously show up just as she's slipping a stitch, making the pattern pop with life. When she gets to the heel flap, she hesitates for a moment until she realizes that the instep stitches just "hang out" while the heel flap is worked back and forth in a twisted slip stitch pattern. That makes perfect sense, and she finishes the flap fearing that the worst is yet to come.

(Why is it that turning a heel has a reputation for being a very difficult knitting maneuver? It's quite simple really, if you trust the pattern and do what it says.)

Karen admires her work thus far. It really is quite beautiful and not nearly as difficult as she supposed. She bravely dives into the heel turn only to have her confidence shattered by knitting abbreviation she has never seen before. The pattern reads as follows:

Turn Heel --
SL1, P ?/20, P2TOG, P1, turn work

She ponders the "P ?/20" instruction. It doesn't make sense to her because the next row instructs her to K5. So what the heck does P ?/20 mean? She consults her knitting books and finds no reference to question marks in knitting patterns. She knows WTF? but P ?/20...not a clue. Karen breaks down and calls her sister, but she knows that big sis will only tell her to "trust the pattern". Frustrating advice, yet it has always proven true.

Well, Karen, this time I apologize because this three-page pattern is riddled with typos and vague instructions. I hope you didn't get to the heel flap and rip everything out in total frustration. I owe you a better pattern for that beautiful yarn and your first foray into sock knitting.

To the pattern designers: Please proof your patterns and have them test knit by someone else, preferably someone who knits.

To those giving yarn and patterns as gifts to fledgling knitters: Please read the pattern to make sure there aren't any bungled up instructions like "P ?/20".

P ?/20

Cripes

But Did I Knit?

Yes, I did! And I'm nearly done with second cursed sock.

My morning routine went like this (with minor deviations):
1. Roll out of bed between 6:30 and 7:30 (Tuesday morning it was 5:45)
2. Make a pot of Columbian coffee with an extra scoop for good measure
3. Brush teeth, etc, while waiting for said coffee
4. Pour coffee into enormous travel mug (with appropriate amounts of chemical additives)
5. Grab knitting and head for the patio

There were a few mornings when it was just too humid to knit, so I read instead. I'm about 1/8 into James Michener's "The Source". If you like Michener, this one is pretty good. It's about an archeological dig in Isreal in the 1964. But you have to like Michener, it's not your typical beach novel. However, I highly suggest "Hawaii" if you're headed to the islands. Just blow past the first several hundred pages as he goes on and on and on and on and on (you get the idea) about the birth of the Hawaiian Islands.

Back to knitting...I'm decreasing the toe on the cursed sock, so I should have it done tonight (which still counts as getting it done while on vacation!) It looks really good and the gauge is matching the first sock, finally. I was a bit worried about knitting with wool on bamboo needles in hot, humid weather, but it didn't seem to make a difference. I'm going to frog the toe on the completed sock and rework it with nylon reinforcing thread. I also don't like the decreases on the first sock all that much. Toes don't take long, but I really hate grafting them. My next sock will be a toe-up out of STR Terra Firma. I'll post the cursed socks on Flickr as soon as they are BOTH off the needles.

It's been a good week of knitting. I also picked up the new Interweave "Felt" magazine. It's a special issue and I'll post a mini-review in the coming days.

More on Respect

The following is an excerpt from: Parenting.org

Respect: A Foundation for Good Relationships
Respect is not just a vital ethical virtue; it is also an essential foundation for good relationships. Teens who show disrespect by ignoring, belittling, insulting or defying their parents make effective parenting difficult and unpleasant, if not impossible. Therefore, a central goal of good parenting is to teach your children to respect you.

You also have a duty to treat your teen with respect. Again, this is not only an obligation of conscience but also a practical necessity. Parents who yell, manipulate, insult, demean, abuse or ignore their children erect huge barriers to effective parenting.

Treating people with respect means letting them know that their safety and happiness matter, that they are important. To teach our children to be respectful, we need to translate the moral principal of respect into specific attitudes and actions.

Here are seven basic rules of respect:
1. Honor the individual worth and dignity of others.
2. Treat others with courtesy and civility.
3. Honor reasonable social standards of propriety and decency and personal beliefs, customs and traditions that are important to others.
4. Treat others the way you want to be treated.
5. Accept and tolerate individual differences and judge others on the content of their character and their abilities rather than religion, race, ethnicity or ideology.
6. Honor the right of adults and the desire of maturing children to control and direct their own lives.
7. Avoid using physical force or intimidation, and refrain from improper threats of force.

Here are some points to keep in mind as you strive to model a respectful attitude for your teen:
1. Listen to your teen without judging or criticizing.
2. Let your teen make his or her own decisions as much as possible.
3. Refrain from saying "I told you so" when your teen fails after ignoring your advice-not easy, but important!
4. Never make fun of your teen.
5. Give your teen your full attention when he or she talks to you.
6. Respect their privacy and possessions.
7. Avoid doing things yourself that you don't want your teen to do: using bad manners, arguing, using offensive language and negative comments.

This information comes from Parenting to Build Character in Your Teen, a joint project of CHARACTER COUNTS! and Common Sense Parenting®.

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As I've been knitting this past week, I've also done a lot of thinking about respect. The greatest lessons we teach our children are by the examples we set. Children learn best by watching what we do and then immitating our actions. I will be a better example. I can only hope others will choose a similar path.

Respect - Definitions

Every now and then, the concepts of respect and self-respect must be revisited, lest they be forgotten. Let's start with disrespect:

dis·re·spect [disriˈspekt]
noun
1. lack of respect; discourtesy; rudeness.

verb (used with object)
2. to regard or treat without respect; regard or treat with contempt or rudeness.

—Synonyms 1. contempt, disregard, irreverence.

Source: Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

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re·spect (rĭ-spěkt')
tr.v. re·spect·ed, re·spect·ing, re·spects
1. To feel or show deferential regard for; esteem.
2. To avoid violation of or interference with: respect the speed limit.
3. To relate or refer to; concern.

n.
1. A feeling of appreciative, often deferential regard; esteem. See Synonyms at regard.
2. The state of being regarded with honor or esteem.
3. Willingness to show consideration or appreciation.
4. respects Polite expressions of consideration or deference: pay one's respects.
5. A particular aspect, feature, or detail: In many respects this is an important decision.

Source: Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 22 Jul. 2007. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/respect.

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self-respect [selfriˈspekt]
n.
respect for oneself and concern for one's reputation (Example: Well-known personalities should have more self-respect than to take part in television advertising.)

Source: Dictionary.com. Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary. K Dictionaries Ltd. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/self respect