Thursday, June 11, 2009

tension - never a good thing

I am having so many problems with my knitting tension. I'm usually a tight knitter, and this is apparently not such a good thing for dpn knitting, and my tendency to have a death grip on my working yarn when changing needles in order to prevent ladders is actually causing ladders. Go figure. The really frustrating thing for me at the moment is that I can look at the few rows I knitted yesterday and they were 100% ladder free - apparently I was doing something that I can't seem to replicate now. The knitting I did before yesterday and what I've done today all have clear ladders running down the sole of the sock, and today for the first time, I have ladders on the top of the foot too.

Guess I need to relax, and let the tension flooooow.

And hope that blocking cures all ills.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

sock progress

I've been a slow knitter lately. I blame it on boredom and a lack of things to watch - I like watching tv or dvds while I knit so I have more to think about than "knit three purl one" over and over endlessly. I got a huge amount of knitting (almost a full scarf's worth) done while watching season 4 of Supernatural, after I saved up all the episodes to watch just before the finale. Since then, I've been lacking. I finally got to the heel turn of my first sock, though!

firstsock

I'm just hoping that when it's done it'll fit Matt's feet. If not, I'm pretty sure it will fit mine. This project has also been a good lesson in fixing twisted stitches and other mistakes.

Admittedly, most of the work took place yesterday, when I knit about two inches of the six inch cuff/leg, and then moved on to the heel. I found that my hands really started to hurt, much more than they do when I just knit a scarf or something. I'm not sure if it's the metal dpns, since I usually use Harmony wood for everything, or just the small circumference and tight knitting.