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wednesday
So I definitely am coming down with a cold. It's not quite here yet, so I suppose it's still possible to divert it, but last night I was pretty unhappily actually-head-stuffy. This morning I wasn't wild about the idea of getting out of bed, but once I was out of it (and in the hotter-than-usual shower) it wasn't too bad. Aches, though! My neck and shoulders are in a definite state of OW -- three Advil in the car this morning, is how much I hurt. (Three Advil at a time is not abnormal for me, but needing pain relievers outside of curling season kind of is.)
Of course it occurs to me that my neck and shoulders may be kinked up because I spent a lot of time last night trying to get this square-toe cast-on right, and just. couldn't. I can do the first step, no problem, and I can do the second step, where I knit the cast-on loops all onto the slightly bigger needle. I can even more or less do the third step -- that is, I can tell from which direction to pick up the loops, and I assume I'm to knit them from the other end of the needle, because that's where the yarn is -- but I can't do the last step nohow. And I think it's because I'm going wrong in the third step; I suspect I'm missing the first loop and picking up the second through the fifth loops from the right, so there are only three left over when I go to do the last bit. Of course, even when I'm sure I've got the four rightmost loops in the third step, I can't find all four of the remaining ones I'm supposed to pick up for the last step.
Anyone out there who can help me with this? I tried it with medium-weight practice yarn on size 10 and 7 DPNs when I was getting incredibly frustrated with the sock yarn on size 1 and 0 (and worried that before long I was going to ruin that length of the yarn and then where would I be). It still didn't work. I've tried casting on looser, and I've tried knitting the first eight loops looser. Seriously, nothing seems to be working for me.
Alternatively, you could try talking me out of this cast-on. The reason I'm hung up on it is that I haven't yet seen or heard anything that makes me think knitting socks toes-up isn't the best idea, despite the fact that I've never even knit a sock cuff-down (parse that: I want to do toe-up socks [g]), and my particular feet are wide and peasant-y, so the pointy-toe cast-on appeals to me not at all (assuming I could even do it; I haven't tried). I will entertain arguments on this, if there are good reasons to think I'm mistaken.
I have all this sock yarn and itty bitty DPNs because my friend K sent me some of her stash. (I'd get her to help me, but she's in Minneapolis.) Here is a story about K.
K met C at the end of August (probably the late 20's, but possibly the very end of August or beginning of September) of 1995, at an orientation-event party for the theater group of which he (a senior) had been a member all this time and she (a freshman) was about to join. It is likely that they were both quite drunk. A week (or two) later, on a Wednesday, he called her and they spent several sober hours on the phone watching the baseball game in which Cal Ripken, Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's record for starts. That weekend was their first real date. They are expecting a baby in January. :-)
All of which I mention because a couple of weeks ago, I was on my way up to Boston to visit my brother, and wouldn't you know, Ripken Jr. (accompanied by a dude in a pinstripe suit) was on my plane. This was a Canadair Regional Jet, mind you, with four seats across each row, two and two; so there was no middle seat, but there was also no first class, so even your VIPs (identifiable by the fact that you can recognize them, and that the flight attendant doesn't charge them five bucks for beer) were back in coach. I was up in the bulkhead seat, where I normally never sit because I'm short enough that it seems more fair to let someone sit there who needs the leg room; so reading from left to right, seated in the front row were: a very nice and very nervous-flying young woman; me; pinstripe dude; Ripken.
So I spent most of the flight minding my business, but eventually summoned the koyech to ask pinstripe dude very quietly if I could ask something without making a scene. Because I didn't want to be That Fan, right, and frankly if it had been any other at all famous person I'd have made polite conversation if someone else initiated it but otherwise left well enough alone -- I'd have treated any other at all famous person like any other complete stranger, in other words, because I'm not among those who randomly strikes up conversations with random people who happen to be seated near me. But, Ripken, and my friends, and their first date!
So. I explained that my college roommate and her husband had gone on their first date the night he broke the record (I had this detail slightly wrong, but it doesn't matter) and that they're expecting a baby in the winter, and pinstripe dude busted out a logo notepad, and after sorting out exactly what I was talking about ("Her anniversary is September 6? No, wait, you got engaged on September 6?" "No, no -- they went on their first date on September 6." "September 6, 1995? ['huh. wow' face]"), himself wrote them a note. Which I sent to them with a covering note explaining blah blah airplane etc.
Parenthetically, I'll relate another story of how, on their honeymoon in London, he noticed that a fellow passenger waiting for the Tube one night was Cigarette-Smoking Man from the X-Files. They were big X-Files fans, but (as above) didn't want to be That Fan, and C very quietly and sort of by the way moved so that they happened to be standing nearby, and then quietly said to the guy that he was sorry to bother him and certainly didn't want to attract attention if it wasn't what he wanted, but they were big fans and on their honeymoon and would he mind (I don't know, probably signing something for them). And the guy was so relieved to be able to do the whole thing casually and quietly and not have everyone else on the platform go "HEY, THAT GUY OVER THERE IS ON THE TELEVISION!"
So I sent K and C the note and told the story of blah blah, and yesterday she pinged me to say they'd got it (a complete surprise, because of course I hadn't told them this had happened) and it made their day!, and they were going to frame it and put it in the baby's room. Which is frankly far more excited than I'd counted on their being, so I'm extra-glad I went ahead and did it, even though as I say my preference would have been to let the celeb-types go about their business unmolested. :-)
In short: hurrah!
Of course it occurs to me that my neck and shoulders may be kinked up because I spent a lot of time last night trying to get this square-toe cast-on right, and just. couldn't. I can do the first step, no problem, and I can do the second step, where I knit the cast-on loops all onto the slightly bigger needle. I can even more or less do the third step -- that is, I can tell from which direction to pick up the loops, and I assume I'm to knit them from the other end of the needle, because that's where the yarn is -- but I can't do the last step nohow. And I think it's because I'm going wrong in the third step; I suspect I'm missing the first loop and picking up the second through the fifth loops from the right, so there are only three left over when I go to do the last bit. Of course, even when I'm sure I've got the four rightmost loops in the third step, I can't find all four of the remaining ones I'm supposed to pick up for the last step.
Anyone out there who can help me with this? I tried it with medium-weight practice yarn on size 10 and 7 DPNs when I was getting incredibly frustrated with the sock yarn on size 1 and 0 (and worried that before long I was going to ruin that length of the yarn and then where would I be). It still didn't work. I've tried casting on looser, and I've tried knitting the first eight loops looser. Seriously, nothing seems to be working for me.
Alternatively, you could try talking me out of this cast-on. The reason I'm hung up on it is that I haven't yet seen or heard anything that makes me think knitting socks toes-up isn't the best idea, despite the fact that I've never even knit a sock cuff-down (parse that: I want to do toe-up socks [g]), and my particular feet are wide and peasant-y, so the pointy-toe cast-on appeals to me not at all (assuming I could even do it; I haven't tried). I will entertain arguments on this, if there are good reasons to think I'm mistaken.
I have all this sock yarn and itty bitty DPNs because my friend K sent me some of her stash. (I'd get her to help me, but she's in Minneapolis.) Here is a story about K.
K met C at the end of August (probably the late 20's, but possibly the very end of August or beginning of September) of 1995, at an orientation-event party for the theater group of which he (a senior) had been a member all this time and she (a freshman) was about to join. It is likely that they were both quite drunk. A week (or two) later, on a Wednesday, he called her and they spent several sober hours on the phone watching the baseball game in which Cal Ripken, Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's record for starts. That weekend was their first real date. They are expecting a baby in January. :-)
All of which I mention because a couple of weeks ago, I was on my way up to Boston to visit my brother, and wouldn't you know, Ripken Jr. (accompanied by a dude in a pinstripe suit) was on my plane. This was a Canadair Regional Jet, mind you, with four seats across each row, two and two; so there was no middle seat, but there was also no first class, so even your VIPs (identifiable by the fact that you can recognize them, and that the flight attendant doesn't charge them five bucks for beer) were back in coach. I was up in the bulkhead seat, where I normally never sit because I'm short enough that it seems more fair to let someone sit there who needs the leg room; so reading from left to right, seated in the front row were: a very nice and very nervous-flying young woman; me; pinstripe dude; Ripken.
So I spent most of the flight minding my business, but eventually summoned the koyech to ask pinstripe dude very quietly if I could ask something without making a scene. Because I didn't want to be That Fan, right, and frankly if it had been any other at all famous person I'd have made polite conversation if someone else initiated it but otherwise left well enough alone -- I'd have treated any other at all famous person like any other complete stranger, in other words, because I'm not among those who randomly strikes up conversations with random people who happen to be seated near me. But, Ripken, and my friends, and their first date!
So. I explained that my college roommate and her husband had gone on their first date the night he broke the record (I had this detail slightly wrong, but it doesn't matter) and that they're expecting a baby in the winter, and pinstripe dude busted out a logo notepad, and after sorting out exactly what I was talking about ("Her anniversary is September 6? No, wait, you got engaged on September 6?" "No, no -- they went on their first date on September 6." "September 6, 1995? ['huh. wow' face]"), himself wrote them a note. Which I sent to them with a covering note explaining blah blah airplane etc.
Parenthetically, I'll relate another story of how, on their honeymoon in London, he noticed that a fellow passenger waiting for the Tube one night was Cigarette-Smoking Man from the X-Files. They were big X-Files fans, but (as above) didn't want to be That Fan, and C very quietly and sort of by the way moved so that they happened to be standing nearby, and then quietly said to the guy that he was sorry to bother him and certainly didn't want to attract attention if it wasn't what he wanted, but they were big fans and on their honeymoon and would he mind (I don't know, probably signing something for them). And the guy was so relieved to be able to do the whole thing casually and quietly and not have everyone else on the platform go "HEY, THAT GUY OVER THERE IS ON THE TELEVISION!"
So I sent K and C the note and told the story of blah blah, and yesterday she pinged me to say they'd got it (a complete surprise, because of course I hadn't told them this had happened) and it made their day!, and they were going to frame it and put it in the baby's room. Which is frankly far more excited than I'd counted on their being, so I'm extra-glad I went ahead and did it, even though as I say my preference would have been to let the celeb-types go about their business unmolested. :-)
In short: hurrah!
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And I can't help with sock casting-on, but if you feel like you've got general the DPN cast-on mastered, I'll have to get you to show me, and start on those mittens so they can be ready for winter.
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If you are coming to book group this weekend, I can try helping you then. Otherwise, we should arrange a time to meet up and go over it.
It might be that you're not just not read to try toe-ups yet.
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We could meet up earlier than that. Apparently there is a knitting group that meets every Sunday afternoon at the Teaism downtown.