4.24.2007

Back on track

I am pleased to say I am back on track with my Inside Out sock. Last night I sat down and just bit the bullet and did the right thing and frogged my sock back to where the knot was. whew. Now there are two longer strings dangling that I still have to deal with, but at least they're long enough and also at the side of the sock instead of right on top of the foot.

I was also nervous about the frogging process because I have never frogged something partway with the intention of picking up the stitches again. But I did it, and it worked. It wasn't so scary after all!

I took a deep breath, pulled the needles out, and pulled it out row by row, counting backwards on my counter so I could keep track of how many rows I pulled out. I went back to just above the offending knot. Then I grabbed some smaller needles, fended off Moose, and got to picking the stitches up again. A couple of the little devils got away from me and jumped down a row or so, but I got them. Then I tinked* back one stitch at a time for another row, putting the knitting onto the normal size needles, and in the process, I also correctly re-oriented all of the stitches, since when picking them up I was only concerned with getting them back on the needles, and not which way they were facing. So the tinking helped get me straightened out.

All in all, these socks have really taught me a lot. I've learned a lot of new techniques with them, and there have been a lot of firsts for me. Among them:

  • Toe-up socks (all my others have been top-down construction)
  • Short row toe/heel (very entertaining)
  • Provisional cast-on (not so entertaining, but handy)

and now...frogging back, picking up stitches (successfully!) and resuming my knitting from there. Very satisfying.

Can't wait to get back to it now. Last night I knitted back to where I was when I decided to frog, and am a mere few rows short of starting the heel. Yay!


*Until I get my glossary up and running, "tinking" for those who don't know is un-knitting backwards, stitch by stitch. T-I-N-K is K-N-I-T spelled backwards. See? See? Get it?! :)

3 comments:

Andi said...

Congrats on all the firsts! I frogged my first sock beack to the heel so I could make the leg bigger. Now I just have about 40 rows to go. It's a race to finish before the next kit arrives!

Anonymous said...

Good Job! Thanks for the tink I do that all the time, far more than I would like! Glad you are back on track! Seaking of provisional cast on I just learned a "magic cast on" you may already know it. I posted about it today.

Anonymous said...

We have sock twins. I already made a pair a long, long time ago. They wear like iron. I'm doing mine on 2's and it makes them plenty big for me, even though the ballband says to use 3's.