I Can't Believe I Did This

Normally, I can live with mistakes and bloopies. I ignore them really well. But the *wide spot* in the border on the Merry and Bright table runner just would not allow ignorance (heh). So I gave up and ripped the binding off, trimmed the edge, and stitched it back in place. It's still not perfect, and the other edge (with the narrower border) is simply not fixable, but it's much better. I can safely ignore it now.

In between dips in the pool (it finally turned Summer-like), I started a pair of Entrelac socks. I was going to use my precious Twisted Playful Netherfield yarn, but it's a heavy fingering weight and the pattern I'm using was written for Noro sock yarn, which is very fine (which yarn I do not love, by the way). So I went with Twisted Kabam (wool/bamboo) in the Leisure colorway, with coordinating heel and toe yarn.

I took an entrelac class a few years ago, from Rick Mondragon no less (editor of Knitter's magazine), at the North Country Fiber Fair. The entrelac part didn't stick, but I did come away knowing how to knit back backwards, which has served me very well. But enough of the entrelac process came back that I was able to use this pattern: http://buttercupia.blogspot.com/2008/04/noro-entrelac-socks.html to get my socks started. It's a bare bones pattern, and if you've never done Entrelac before, you might want to find a tutorial for the basics.

At any rate, I got about 4 rows of squares done before I realized that I was using needles that were too big (2.75mm) and the sock was huge (I had already modified the ribbing because I knew that I did not need 72 sts for the upper cuff, but the entrelac portion was way too big as well). So I sighed and tore it out to the triangle row, and dropped down a needle size (to 2.5mm). I'm much happier with the size and texture now, and am becoming re-familiar with the whole Entrelac notion. Twisted yarn is perfect for this kind of pattern- it really shows off the beautiful color changes. The process is fiddly (though knitting back backwards makes it so much easier and faster) and fun, and I love love love the look.

I hope to get more done today, in between laps.