Skip to main content

The Secret to Finishing Socks

is to have lots of knitting time and nothing else to do. I always finish socks, but I'm not a particularly fast knitter, and it usually takes me a couple of weeks. Well, yesterday I found out that if I just sit and knit (for hours and hours) I can get half a sock done in a day! I don't really recommend the circumstances I had, but it's nice to know.

Here's what happened: My husband was having some trouble with his stomach Friday and Friday evening, but thought it would pass as most things do. He woke me up about 2:00 am with the news that he thought we should call a doctor. He doesn't like to ask for help (what man does?), so I knew it must be something. Long story short, the doctor recommended a trip to the ER, so I started on my odyssey of sitting and working on the sock (which had most of the leg finished) at about 2:45 am.

We worked our way through the ER, and after the CT scan they were pretty sure that the appendix would have to come out. DH was admitted to the hospital sometime that morning (it's funny how the perception of time changes when hospitals are involved) and we continued to wait to find out what time the surgery would be. The surgeon finally secured some OR time about 2:00 pm, and everything went very well. DH spent the night, I came home and had a good night's sleep, and picked him up this morning. He has some teeny bandages and sore muscles, but otherwise is fine. Modern medicine is truly amazing. (No photos - I threatened to take one of him in the attractive hospital gown and socks, but decided not to.)

But here are the socks: Monkeys out of Zen String Harmony, fingering weight in "Opal". The yarn was nice to work with; it's merino and tencel, so looks shiny. I don't know if I could've made the two socks look more similar if I had divided the ball into two originally, (or tried to begin at the same point of repeat in the colors) but I just started knitting the first and then continued on to the second when that one was done. I kind of like the variation; besides, I didn't have a scale to weigh the yarn when I started, so I wouldn't have been able to scientifically divide the yarn into two equal balls. I recently got one, and it's fun to know how much yarn there's left when you're done with one sock. I usually make my cuffs relatively short, and have a lot of yarn left over when I'm finished.

I was worried the other day; I wanted to use the beautiful yarn I got from the Zen String sock club last month. It's sport weight with consequently less yardage than fingering, and since I knit cuff down, I was worried about using more than half of the skein for the first sock. I used the Spindle Sock pattern, and like the way the first one came out (even though I misread the directions for the cables and made a little mistake, I was consistent so I think they look okay. Now I just have to remember to make the same mistake on the second one.

Yes, I do like Zen String. In fact, look what was waiting in the mailbox when I came home last night! Angelina put some yarn up on the website a week or so ago, and I just love the Bambewe, so when I saw the big skein she was selling (blue) and she said she could see it knit into a lacy wrap, I was a goner. The lighter color is this month's sock club yarn, Serendipity fingering. It feels totally soft!





I bought some more Bambewe from the Loopy Ewe when Sheri had it in stock a couple of weeks ago. These are Bart and Louise and Blue Norther colorways. This yarn is 60% merino, 30% bamboo, and 10% nylon and is very nice to work with and wear.

And I found out it pays to link! I noticed that I have a $5 credit in my Loopy Ewe account, and it's there because someone visited their site and opened an account, arriving there by way of my blog! So thank you to whoever did that; it's really fun to realize that someone besides me reads this stuff. And I totally recommend The Loopy Ewe; I have never had a single problem with the (considerable amount of) yarn I've purchased there, their shipping is lightening fast, and Sheri is sweet and always willing to give help or advice. (This endorsement is the opinion of the writer of this blog, and was completely unsolicited!)

Also this past few days: I was invited into Ravelry (I'm LaurieB there) and got my ISE5 secret pal information. Fun, fun!

Comments

CathyCate said…
Glad your husband is doing well, and that the appendicitis was caught early and taken care of promptly. And aren't you glad you had your socks with you??
Lovely yarn, lovely socks! And I certainly endorse The Loopy Ewe too -- wonderful customer service.
Waiting for my ISE5 match -- soon, no doubt!
Anonymous said…
I am glad also that hubby is on the mend. Hospitals are another time "zone", so glad you grabbed the knitting. I am looking forward to trying socks on two circulars....is that how you knit yours?
Hope you have fun with ISE5,I had a bumpy beginning but doing great now!

Popular posts from this blog

What I've Been Up To: Part Three. Missouri

Tuesday morning The Princess and I flew to St. Louis, rented a car, and drove a couple of hours to St. Robert, MO.  My SIL joined the National Guard and graduated from Boot Camp on May 9th, so we wanted to be on hand to congratulate him.  May 8th was Family Day, so we got to pick him up at Fort Leonard Wood and take him with us for the day.  He looks very handsome and impressive in his dress uniform! The Princess and her cadre of Army Wives.  Facebook is handy for making connections! We enjoyed meeting some of his buddies and their families and spending some quiet time, then had to have him back on post at 9:00 PM.  The next morning, we went back for an impressive graduation ceremony.  When that was over, we drove to a restaurant several miles out of town.  The drive was beautiful and the restaurant was actually in a cave.  The "shuttle" from the parking lot to the restaurant and "resort" was an old, rickety van driven by someone who might

The Great Adventure 2017 Part Eleven

Okay, we are heading into our last week and I should finish the narrative in no time!  We left off as we were riding the train to Oxford, which was where we picked up our next car.  Our B&B was in Stow-on-the-Wold, which should have been a fairly quick and easy drive.  Unfortunately, our GPS again conspired against us and by the time we figured out we were indeed going in the wrong direction, we had made our drive into a considerably longer one than it needed to be.  I hesitate to say that we wasted time, since seeing any place in England was interesting, but we did have to do some backtracking to get where we needed to be. We spent two nights in a very quaint building that was built in 1640.  The narrow circular staircase and slant to the floors bore out this fact. Imagine carrying two suitcases up these stairs! We had heard good things about the Cotswolds and were looking forward to seeing some part of the area.  Our first impression was that they are indeed popular with

The Great Adventure 2017 Part Twelve - Last Stop, London!

We arrived in London by train from Oxford on Thursday morning, Oct. 12.  After deciding that we didn't want to figure out the Tube while dealing with our luggage, we took a taxi to our hotel.  We did buy our travel cards at the station so we were all set for tackling the underground later that night.  This was our smallest room yet but worked for what we used it for. Our hotel was in the Kensington neighborhood and chosen to be convenient to the things we wanted to do in London.  We unpacked and headed out for a walk in Kensington Gardens.  It's beautiful and huge.  We noticed the Albert Memorial and walked by Kensington Palace and the statue of Queen Victoria.  If we hadn't had our fill of palaces already, we would be in the right place to see more. We kept walking and ended up at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which neither of us had seen before.  It's an immense art museum with endless collections.  A couple of things I liked were the room of tapestries