Hail! Thunder! Socks!

My pc is sick and probably heading for whatever pc afterlife old pcs end up in. I’m hoping I can keep it going a little longer, preferrably until June. While I can write blog posts on my laptop I can’t edit pics, so if my posts become pic-less the pc has probably bitten the dust.

Work is still crazy. It’s gone from working weekends crazy to working weekends and weeknights crazy. This is more socially limiting than anything else, however. I take good long breaks to stretch and rest the back. And I’ve recently bought a groovy ergonomic split keyboard, which actually seems to make a difference.

It’s my lunch break now and I should be making chilli fudge for the beau to take to the thing I’ll be missing tonight, but had to sent the beau out to get a few essential ingredients. So I’m blogging instead. I have swatchy goodness:

The Naturally Sensation was almost exactly on gauge until I washed it, then suddenly there are less stitches in a row, but just as many rows as before. Ah, the odd things that yarns do.

Looking up the Rainbow Socks pattern on Ravelry revealed no errata, and notes made by other knitters who’d made the socks didn’t reveal the source of the problem. But thanks to 2paw, who left a comment saying there was a discussion on the pattern there, I eventually hunted down a explanation in the forums that gave me one of those “Ah!” moments where it suddenly all makes sense.

(Added later, after the storm passed: Now I’m fudging a solution to the short row heel. You see, normally I increase the sock width by ten stitches around before doing a short row heel, because I have very high insteps. But that means increasing within the short row pattern. How could I do it neatly? Eventually I worked out that instead of knitting together the two short row loops, I can just work both stitches and effectively be increasing stitches.)

In the meantime… I’m planning a trip to New Zealand soon. Anybody have any suggestions for yarn stores I shouldn’t miss? I have Touch Yarns down, but will skip Ashford (or I’ll end up carting a 4 shaft loom around).

Oh my. A thunderstorm has just blown in. With hail. I had better get offline and switch off the pc!

2 thoughts on “Hail! Thunder! Socks!

  1. On my last trip to NZ I had heard about this wonderful wool shop (Woolworks)in Christchurch, the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere. NOT. Tamworth Spotlight is bigger and I was disappointed. However, I buy wool from The Wool Company (www.thewoolcomapny.com), they are in Utiku/Taihapi on the North Island, you will need to use your map. I love NZ and its wool. Enjoy and dress warm.

  2. I’m off to NZ in October, and have bought the book ‘Crafty Girls’ Road Trip’ as an aid to finding all the good knitting places – plus all sorts of arty-crafty destinations across NZ are listed therein. A very useful resource.

    We had originally planned to travel around both islands, but with just under 3 weeks there, common sense prevailed and we’re sticking to the South.

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