Wrong

(Before I begin, I have to point out that for the first time in ages, I'm actually able to post a blog on the date for which I intended it to be posted. I'm quite chuffed about that.)

I am in house hunting hell.

Well, okay, maybe not hell. I do have a tendency toward the dramatic, I'll admit.

House hunting purgatory, then. (We'll ignore for the moment that I'm Lutheran and when Luther got in a snit with the Catholics he chucked out things like Purgatory. Think the Catholics have now too, for that matter.)

The thing about moving back to small towns is that they're, well, small. There aren't as many housing opportunities.

There are lots in the small city where I'll be working, but the Things' requests (and my own wants, too, quite honestly) are for some space and especially, for my "Learning Disabled" Things, a school small enough where they won't get lost in the crowd. After years of living with LD and of working with them, I can categorically state that all LD means is someone with an unusually high IQ who tends to think outside the box and who is totally unimpressed by conventional sit on your butt and do it this way learning. Makes me wonder why the word disabled is even part of the label.

(Anyway, little me digression there, sorry. I get like that when not in full tell-a-story mode.)

So, we've spent lots of time trucking around visiting school districts and trying to find housing in them.

The general result in School District #1 has been that houses are either 1) more than I would want to pay for a mortgage, let alone rent, especially with a heating oil winter coming on, 2) actually below what I expected to pay and therefore tiny and already rented anyway, or 3) perfectly within my range and available, but not rentable to me because the landlords generally rent to childless couples only and I am not childless. I'm not even a couple. And when you have 3 homes in category 1 and a single home each in categories 2 and 3, your options ratchet down rather quickly.

School District #2 has a house. A lovely house on 8 acres. A lovely house on 8 acres in my price range with enough square footage for all our furniture and for furniture I don't even own (like a couch) and a terrific propane fireplace (which I would soooo use) and a prospective landlady who really wants us to have the place because, as she said in an email, she thinks we would take good care of her home, and that means everything to her.

It's a lovely house that is not available until the end of October. This would mean driving the Things from the town we are in to some sort of before school drop off each morning, driving into work, driving back up to get them from some sort of after school, then driving clear back to where we currently are. If you are at all familiar with Maine's "you can't get here from there" road system, you would, as I did, quickly realize that what should be about 20 minutes of driving on straight shot road between the three towns (if said straight roads actually existed) is more apt to take an hour. One way. Besides, although my hosts would say stay, I don't want to impose that long. And it's not like there's a handy extended stay hotel to live in for a few weeks either. Small town, small city. Sigh.

So, the perspective landlady who really wants us is racking her brains trying to figure out how to get out of her home earlier so we can get into it, I've emailed a friend who has a mother with a large home in a great school district father south down the road (but at least it's interstate driving; interstates are pretty straight shots, even in Maine) who was seriously considering looking for someone to move in to help pay for oil (she and I are very sympathetic on views on politics, religion and kid raising and she adores my Things so we get on like a house afire) and we go today to look at a place 20 minutes north up the interstate, which has a dean from work in the same area with whom I cold commute, and also has a fireplace and at least an acre of land, but which is more along the modular home build which will mean not lots of insulation.

(And yes, I realize that that last sentence-which-is-its-own-paragraph is the sentence from hell, but I believe it is punctuated properly enough to not technically be a run-on AND it perfectly illustrates just how quickly my brain is slamming together options so you're stuck with it. Mea culpa.)

The last house is at least the perfect excuse for lots of sock knitting. Really warm, thick socks, like the Frankensocks.

Not that the socks I am currently knitting are warm or thick. (Yes, I'm actually going to talk about knitting on a knit/crochet blog. I know that seems odd given the last few posts, but please bear with me.)

I'm knitting Shetland Lace Rib Socks from Stitches of Violet with the purple Trekking sock yarn that knocked the Frankensocks out of the running awhile back (we won't discuss just how long awhile back that was, okay?). The socks are my first go at lace, and I am loving the idea that regular mistakes (i.e. holes! Holes in the knitting!) could create something so beautiful.

Well, for real beauty, go click on the link. My stitching isn't that perfectly even yet, even allowing for the blobby lace look the Yarn Harlot talks about and the fact that I have a tiny point and shoot digital camera. (I so want a rig like Deanne has. Nice camera. Nice price too, I am sure. Sigh.)

And I've come to an interesting bit in the pattern. I'm getting ready to do the heel. Heels have never bothered me. I learned short row heels while knitting Christmas stockings and have had fun turning them ever since. But my old sock pattern (the first and only pair I'd made up until now) had me consider the stitch marker/first stitch as the center of my heel. This made sense to me, because it's where everything began. (If that's completely illogical, don't tell me. Dyslexic brains move in their own logic sphere.) To do the short row heel then, I simply slipped an equal number of stitches off of each side of my first needle and onto the other two dpns, then knit happily away.

If I use the same process here, though, I will mess up the lace patterning when I return to knitting lace; each repeat is a set of ten and I need to keep that set together or I will have an off-kilter foot. I'm off kilter enough as it is, I don't need twisted feet.

One bit of my brain says, "The sock is a tube. Therefore, you should be able to split the stitches as needed and the tube can't do a thing about it. It can't even run home to its mommy crying because it hasn't got one. Just do it." The other bit says, "Yes, but it's a tube knit in the round, which means you're knitting a spiral. A spiral might care where you say the middle is."

The rest of my brain has told both bits to shut up. Some days, there is nothing more fun than being a house-hunting, dyslexic, beginner knitter with not another knitter in sight. I wonder if Maranacook Yarns is open right now? After all, it's fine to be out driving; all Tropical Storm Kyle is doing is dropping rain that sounds comfortingly heavy as it hits (that's due to a frontal boundary and upper-level trough that's pulling Kyle this way; I should mention I'm a bit of a weather geek too). It's only in fall that rain sounds that way, have you noticed?

Oh, and Arthur? Does this blog answer your question?

A Tale of Two (Different) Socks

I have finally taken the leap into sock making. (Christmas stockings, while a good dry run, really don't count; if they turn out too huge, people love them even more. Extra loot capacity, you know). I found a yarn I am so in love with that it's a wonder that everyone around me doesn't gouge out their eyes at the sight of it, I've banged on about it so much.



But look. See the pretty patterning on the swatch? How could one not be totally enamored of the pretty patterning? I mean to say.

I even found the perfect pattern/tutorial online at Hipknitism.com that very nicely walks all non-mathematical people (that would be me, in case you were wondering) through the math so that they can create a uniquely them sock, rather than said newbie casting on a "follow me completely pattern" and discovering that they have a) knit a sock that could easily double as a leg length tourniquet should they be in the mood to get rid of a leg they really didn't care for anyway or b) scrambling to find a charity which sends socks to needy elephants.

And really, this is a basic ribbed sock that encourages you to do what you want for ribbing pattern (so long as it matches your math) and leaves you free to choose.

It's a very me pattern.

The problem?

I've done just a bit over an inch and I'm already bored with ribbing (okay, okay, so maybe I'll do a bit more, just to keep the socks from falling into a puddle around my ankles). I read far too much to suspect I have the attention span of gnat, but there it is. I want to do….something else. I love this yarn, even if it is cotton. I can't hold its cotton-ness against it. I want it to be spectacular even if it turns out that despite my best efforts into the realm of numbers I can't get the sock on past my toes. If I fail, I want to fail beautifully.

So, suggestions? If there are any knitters out there reading this (even one) please, I beg of you, give me some ideas. I want something that will stun and amaze all without detracting from the self-patterning, er, pattern.

There is (dare I admit it?), one small flaw with the perfect yarn. Just one. Tiny, really.
Despite my best efforts at trying to match up the yarn from the center and the outside of the skein so I could do this totally cool old-technique-made-new-again a.k.a Kory Stamper's knitting two socks at one time (I know all about SSS. I've read "the literature"), I couldn't get the freakin' colors to match. At all. I finally gave up, stuffed the yarn back into the center of the ball (no way that will tangle, I'm sure) and decided that if I really wanted to try this technique, I'd, well, have to get some more yarn.

I bought this:

Now, ok, the not so knitterly new among the whopping three of you who read this are no doubt trying to think of a way to tactfully say a few things. Let me help you along.

Don't you think that yarn is a bit, well, thick for a sock? How do you think it will behave as a fabric? Or, come to that, how do you think you will put on your shoes?

It's the colors' faults. The colors! Blame them for attracting me and insisting that they wanted to be socks, even if it turns out that is totally unrealistic of them. Really. Besides, have I perchance mentioned that it's freakin' cold here? My shoes are old, they can stretch. I have no sympathy for the shoes. I want warm feet and I don't want to wait until summer.

If it makes you feel better, we can call this a slipper sock. Just imagine that I will sew one of those leather wannabe soles to the bottom. Not that I have any plans on doing so as that would mess up the look of the cool solid colored heel and toe I'll be doing (said solid to be purchased after I decide which stripe color is my favorite) but you can imagine all you want if it will make you feel happier.

You do realize that at that gauge you'll have to cast on so few stitches that you'll be in danger of impaling yourself each time you turn a corner on your (cough) dpns.

Yes, well. I'm a knitter on the edge. Give me the pointy sticks that make me feel as if I've gotten somewhere with each needle rather than mindlessly chasing myself in a circle. I'll take my chances with impalement.

You've bare faced admitted you were a newb. And you want to try double knitting these? Two socks at once? Why??

Go read Kory Stamper's article. She uses pen drawn happy and sad faces on her fingers to show you what's right and what's wrong. Peeking their wee little faces out between good stitches (happy face!) and bad stitches (looking oh so sorry for you) that mean you've fused your work together. And then she kindly tells you how to de-fuse—sorry, couldn't resist. How could you not want to try the technique?! I mean, it's a seriously cool, motivational visual aid, that. They are very encouraging little fingers.

Have you thought about the fact that with needles that small and yarn that thick you will soon be reduced to a gibbering idiot because you'll probably splitting your yarn with each stitch (and have you wondered if the good Lord gave you a brain, period)?

I have accepted the fact that this yarn splits into more pieces than a cookie that four Things are trying to divide equally. At least in some places. In others? Bwaa ha ha, I'm knitting on!

Gibbering, after a certain point, is actually rather soothing. You should try it.

(oh, and I've spoken with God and He's assured me He will get back to me on that last question as soon as is Omnipotently possible. Seems He's rather busy at the mo. War. Famine. Intolerance by Group A for everybody in Groups B-Z who do not believe or live or love exactly as they do. You know. Basically even bigger acts of human brainlessness than me attempting to make this yarn into socks.)

Thus herein lies, for now, the end of the tale of two (different) socks. Perhaps you'll hear more (if you don't want to, don't click on this blog. Easy, right?)

And if any of you three were wondering what became of the fetching hat, its patiently waiting its turn. While I feel guilty about that (seven-year-olds can still do sad eyes to the max) I'm currently sending out so many resumes and writing so many freakin' cover letters that I'm not quite sure that my mind is focused enough to follow the pattern well. I'd like to avoid screwing it up on the second go round, if that's even remotely possible.