A Minor Disaster

I blame my husband for this, as for most things. If he had been helping me watch our two-year-old instead of napping this afternoon, this would never have happened. Really, my choices had nothing to do with it. That's what I tell myself. Don't disillusion me.

The disaster in question is miscrossed cables, about 6 rows back.

I really don't want to rip back that far, and correcting miscrossed cables is a real pain in the neck. I'd take it to the knit shop, but they're closed tomorrow. So I'll be setting aside my lovely cashmere wrap until I get another chance to go to the knit shop, which will be next Friday. Aaaargh!

I think my knitting feng shui is out of balance or something. I made a mistake on this beautiful wrap. I am entirely dissatisfied with the socks I am working on, and considering frogging them. And I have set aside a couple of projects to work on later. Meanwhile, I have friends popping out babies left and right, whom I am obligated to knit for. I have yarn (thanks to another wonderful yarn crawl yesterday, yay!) but no patterns chosen. This is not for lack of trying. I have looked through my pattern books and searched ravelry. I just can't seem to find the right patterns. Aaaargh!

I don't know why I am in a knitting funk right now, and I don't know how to get out of it, but I am open to ideas... (ie. help!)

Learning cable knitting

I decided I wanted to learn to cable knit. I love cable-knit things. I love celtic knots, and cable-knitting lends itself to celtic knotwork designs in knitting. So, I decided to try this small project I had run across: a cable-knit mug cozy.

As I expected, cable knitting takes some practice and some getting used to. It feels awkward at first, holding two knitting needles and a cable needle, and it's very easy to get confused as to which needle goes in front and which one you're supposed to be knitting from. And tinking cabled work is a serious pain in the neck.

But by the end of this small project, I pretty much had the hang of it, and it even got to be kind of fun. It inspired me to think of what else I can do with cables. I've sketched out a design to knit a celtic cross on a sweater. I think it will be very challenging, but worth it, if I can manage it. Before I attempt that, I think I'll do a plainer cable knit sweater, something small, like for my son.

Done with Prickly Pear socks, on to the next good thing

Another pair of socks, done. This is my fourth pair, and has by far the most complicated pattern I have ever attempted. They turned out about as nicely as I hoped, which is always a pleasant surprise.

My next project will be to learn how to knit cables. I will be making Knit Picks cabled mug cozy, a pattern available for free both on the Knit Picks site and on Ravelry. I anticipate that it will go pretty quickly. I may even make more than one. Once I feel comfortable with cable knitting, I plan to attempt it on some socks. I have not yet made up my mind as to which pattern I will choose out of several possibilities. None of the patterns I have is ideal to me, so whichever one I choose I will have to modify. I have never tried to convert a top-down sock pattern to toe-up, but I may have to for my next project. That will certainly be an adventure!