The Case of the Ribby Stockinette

For the past two weeks my class has been eating lunch as a group, which means that they get to see my knitting as this is the only regular time I have to work on anything. This also means that they have discovered how often I jump projects. I'm not all that bad. I only have three projects going at the moment that can be thrown into my backpack on the way out the door (the poor Runaways Sweater is still sitting on the shelf begging to be finished). I was working regularly on the Wendy Socks, but I actually bound off one and haven't had time to do the very intricate cast on to start the toe of sock number two. Today I had Taryn's Traveling Woman Shawl with me and one of the girls asked if I ever actually finish any of the stuff I knit. I explained the term "knitting monogamy" much to the amusement of the table. Now if I could just explain it in Russian.

One of my three projects is a beautiful pair of socks that I am test knitting (YES! TEST KNITTER! ME!) for the lovely Liz Abinante of Traveling Woman Shawl fame. It is perfect for the yarn my mom picked out because she does not want, as she puts it, any "holes" in her socks (read pretty lace detailing that I crave like chocolate). I can't go into great detail, but this pattern is written as a tutorial for a stitch technique that I've never used before. I have nothing but good things to say about it, and I think everyone should immediately go on Ravelry and add it to their queue (it's the Socks for Euni pattern).

So Wednesday I'm knitting along, after turning the heel, completing all of the gusset decreases, coming down the home stretch, and then I see it.

Do you see it?

See that pretty patterned foot? Would you believe me if I told you that it is missing THREE STITCHES?! I know, I couldn't believe it either. I swore, I almost threw things (but I'm down to 4 needles in this set of dpns and can't risk losing another), and then sadly put it on the shelf to be dealt with later.

I lay in bed last night trying to turn off my brain and started thinking about this sock. It's so close to done it's killing me. But I decided that this was my perfect excuse to rip the whole thing out and start over to fix some small things that were bothering me. The biggest change I'm making is to go down a needle size from US2 to 1.5. I currently don't own 1.5, but I was not liking the fabric that the size 2 was making. For all the love I have for Wendy Happy, it does not do so well on a bigger gauge. The stockinette portion looks a little ribby because there is nothing in the yarn to "fluff out" between stitches. My Wendy Socks are knit in size 1 and I think the fabric is great.

The other change? I'm switching from dpns to circs. That's right. I'm going to teach myself the magic loop technique. Hopefully I can make this work. I'll be hitting Knit One tomorrow just in time for their giant summer sale (starts tomorrow and runs through the first week of July. It's going to be Legen . . . wait for it . . . DARY!) to pick up a set. And hopefully some new yummy, decadent, over the top yarn that I could never afford but am willing to starve in order to buy.