Diversion
After ranting and raving about knitting my current lace project, I have to have a diversion. I have been making more progress on that than my lace. I need it to keep from hurting any innocent by-stander at my house. The dogs run for cover when I pull out the lace and my husband hits the garage.

When I whip out my sock, every knows there will be peace throughout the land of the crabby lace knitter. For some reason, the sock pattern that I learned from Sue has soothed the savage beast in me until I can gather myself to calmly try the lace project again. So I am making wonderful progress on my sock but the lace, not so much. I will wear socks before the lace so...I tend to work more on the sock lately than anything else.
I finished the first sock only to my shock and horror that I can't make the strips match. I have unraveled and rewound the ball a million times to find the correct stripping sequence and can't find it. There is one section in the skein that has a very small color varation that I can't find. I even had hubby take a look with me and he said he didn't see it either. He is an art and color driven person, so I trust his judgement. Here is what I mean...


Can you see the very top of the sock. Well those two very tiny bands of color are the half way point of the sock. So I should have started the sock at the next set that looks just like it after the little blip of green. I can not find that color sequence again, except for those two places right there. The second sock should have been started between the two little skimpy bands of purple and blue. So I called TKC and they are looking for another skein of this yarn so I can knit the other sock to match this one. Then I will have two pairs of matched socks eventually. I really wasn't shooting for that, but what the hey! It's been a learning experience about splitting the ball in half and looking for color varations. I have never tried to match strips before. So I have learned a lesson and will be more careful next time I am thinking about matching strips. I think maybe I should look at the skein BEFORE I get a bright idea. Duh! So here is the finished effort. The second one will either be on hold for a while or there will not be a matched set because Susan can not find my another skein. Oh well, at least I will have another pair of wonderful socks to walk around the house in during the winter.

I have also been trying to work on a little hat for my nephew when I am not having tantrums about the lace. It looked like this earlier today... Then I got near the end and discovered I had read the decreasing directions incorrectly and ripped the whole thing out. I will try to work on it again later next week. I need to get larger needles. I think my gauge was really out of whack and it was just looking way too small for Zach's head. So it was another lesson. I did like how it was starting to look. It's a quick knit so I wasn't too upset that I ripped it out. So on to the next thing.... Okay, I have made some progress until late this afternoon. I thought I was going full guns on this and then the count wasn't coming out correctly. I have ripped out until I just had to walk away. I thought maybe I would make some progress on it but I can't seem to get past a certain row. So it might have to wait for Sue's eagle eye to tell me what I am doing wrong. So now let's recap. I have one sock and have to stop that so Susan can order me another skein, I ripped out the hat I had been working on after the sock problem, and now have ripped out at least 6-8 rows of the lace I managed to get done this past weekend. So what I need to do now is just go to bed and pull the covers up over my head and think about crocheting something....NOT.