Monday, June 23, 2008

And, it's a sock!


Finished yesterday. Mate to be cast on soon. It fits pretty well! I think I will add about a quarter-inch to the next one before beginning the toe decrease.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Beach Knitting: or, How I Started Knitting a Sock

Yarn fumes. That's the only explanation for how I went to a yarn shop looking for a summer project for beach knitting, and ended up knitting a woolen sock. The yarn fumes overpowered me.

I guess I should back up and explain.

The munchkins and I spent the first week in June at the beach, on North Carolina's Outer Banks. We shared a beach house with my best friend and her husband and daughter, who's about Carolina's age. I had lots of lovely knitting time, as Arden still takes a morning nap, so my friends would take the girls to either the beach or the pool and I would stay home with Arden. Then all the kids napped in the afternoon.

None of the projects I had going before I left really struck me as beach knitting. Too warm, or too heavy, or too fussy. I brought along the materials to make a little lace headband for Carolina, which I started successfully on the first morning.



It hummed along while the only other person in the house was asleep, but I am not a person who can knit lace and pay attention to anything else. So I needed a project that was easy but not boring, summery, and could be done while the kids were up or while hanging out in the evening.

As luck would have it, I just happened to know that there was a yarn shop only 4.2 miles from where we were staying. I just happened to have Mapquested directions to it before leaving home, and to have taken note of its location when I passed it on the way in. So that afternoon, during naptime, I headed down to Knitting Addiction. There, I explained my predicament to owner Jeanne and her sidekick, Brittany. Of course, they agreed, I couldn't knit lace with munchkins around. After some discussion, Jeanne said, "What about socks?"

"Oh, no, no," I said. "I've never made a sock. I don't want to knit socks. I don't want to learn anything on this trip, I just want to knit something fun. And wool is not beachy or summery. And I do not like DPNs. They stick out in all directions. My work gets all laddery. I do not like them, Sam-I-am."

Jeanne tried to persuade me that the ladders were easily avoided, that using DPNs on a sock is much different than using them to finish hats, that socks are addictive and that if she couldn't knit socks, she might have to kill people. But I stood firm. She backed off.

Meanwhile, two women bounced into the shop and declared that they wanted to make socks. They were on vacation together with their families and they wanted to learn socks. One of them needed to learn to purl first, but by golly, they wanted to knit socks.

Jeanne moved to help them, showing them patterns and yarn for adult socks and for baby socks. She explained that if they chose baby socks, she could get them started and then they could come back later in the week for help with the heels and toes. I sneaked a look at Jeanne's adult sock pattern while she talked, and I even carried around some sock yarn for a minute. But I quickly put it back.

The soon-to-be sock knitters agreed with Jeanne's baby-sock wisdom and were soon ensconced on cushy couches, munching pralines and casting on. I continued to peruse the store, petting everything again, admiring the many knitted samples and original designs, and discussing with Brittany the merits of various possible projects. I finally settled on a tank top pattern and chose two lovely shades of Vermont Organic Fiber Company's O-Wool Balance, a blend of organic cotton and wool yarn. Brittany even modified the pattern to fit me exactly!

While Brittany wound the yarn, I called the beach house and learned that we needed something with which to ignite the charcoal to cook dinner. I trotted down the shopping center to what looked like a convenience store but turned out to be a gourmet shop. Yes, they sold charcoal, the lady said, but no matches or lighters. She agreed that they probably should carry these items.

I returned to Knitting Addiction and sat down on the couches near the sock knitters to wait for my yarn, explaining my cooking-fire predicament. Jeanne and Brittany generously decided they could part with their birthday-candle lighter ... and what a profitable decision that turned out to be.

I'm not really sure of the sequence of what happened next. All I know is that I watched the women beginning their socks, and Jeanne said something about the pattern and yarn she had seen me consider. They let me knit a bit on wooden DPNs (I had used mostly metal before) on a project they had going. Wow, I thought, this really isn't hard. And then, somehow, I had bought the needles and yarn (Cherry Tree Hill Supersock DK), and Brittany was winding it. Very clever, that -- wind the yarn before the fumes wear off, and I can't change my mind! A copy of their pattern for Basic Socks a la Jeanne, and I was good to go.

That night, while watching TV, I cast on the sock. It seemed pretty easy -- Jeanne's basic pattern is very simple and easy to follow. After I got the ribbing going, I decided I really should start swatching the tank top. So I cast it on too, and did a few rounds. It seemed OK ... but I went back to the sock. And that kept up all week.

When I got home on June 6, the sock was this far along:



The tank top swatch was this far along:



I have knit a few more rounds on the tank top swatch since then. But I haven't been able to put the sock down (in Distracted Knitter terms, that is). I turned the heel at WWKIP Day in Falls Park last Saturday, and finished the gusset at Wednesday night knitting last night. Today, it's this far along:



If I can manage to knit while watching The Wire tonight, I should be decreasing for the toe in no time. That's a big if. And the tank top? Well, I hate to say it, since Brittany did all the calculations to modify it especially for me. I still love the yarn, but I can't get too enthused about the tank top itself. I'm thinking blanket. Carolina has been after me to "knit her a blankie," and Arden needs one too. But first, socks. I still don't know how it happened, but I do know why they call that shop Knitting Addiction.