Coaster corral

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While the Double Dot socks were hibernating waiting for me to address the twisted stitches, I whipped up a corral for all those coasters I couldn’t stop knitting last year.

I combined the coaster pattern and the Drops Farmer’s Delight basket patterns to coordinate with the two-tone coasters.  A provisional cast-on hides the seam.

I used four of the colors from the coasters for the corral, two blue shades, and two green.

The corral looks like a hat with a very deep brim that is folded down to cover the “wrong” side.

The bottom or wrong side doesn’t look that nice but it’s not seen even when empty.

This one holds approximately eight coasters and could be made it taller by adding more stitches for the sides/brim.

Double Dot socks

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Thank you for coming up with names for the textured stitch!  I liked them all and went with stgeorgeknits name for the textured stitch: Double Dot Stitch.  Actually, that’s the name I thought of as well.

So the socks are finally finished!  And will be on their way to the recipient soon.  They almost match just like the first pair.

I still have some yarn left.  24 g (approx. 107 yards) of Beach House – the multi blue/teal and 22 g (approx. 98 yards) of the Hari Hari – grey.  (I’m so glad I bought that scale!)  

Two things I did differently were 1.) Twisted German aka Old Norwegian Cast-on and 2.) Eye of Partridge heel.

The cast-on is very stretchy or at least more so than the longtail cast-on that I usually use.  The Eye of Partridge heel is very similar to the “normal” heel flap but I wanted to try it so I did.  It looks more sophisticated.

So there we have it.  The Double Dot Sock.  I anyone is interested, I will be happy to write up the pattern.

I need a name

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That new texture stitch needs a name.  I spent way too much time researching the stitch and came up empty.

Here is the sample:The directions in chart form, in-the-round (top section) and knitted flat (bottom):

 

This stitch is based on the Dot Stitch charted here:

Suggestions for a name?

No purls or twists

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I hope the saga of the twisted stitches and purl bump socks is over.

Removing the purl bump in the middle of the sole was a very easy task.  Untwisting the row of stitches on the heel was not.

I used the same technique for both repairs but I had to rip out the toe shaping to get down to the twisted stitches.  Not really a big deal as it was only 21 rows of decreasing numbers for a total of 892 stitches…but who’s counting, right?  Much better than ripping out the entire foot!

Remember when you got a run in your stockings or tights and it was the end of them?  If you were lucky, you could stop the run from getting bigger by dabbing a bit of nail polish on the end.  Well, I created a run on purpose.  Knitters will understand this but for the rest, I’ll explain why I did this and how to fix it.

  1. Secure the offending stitch, be it a dropped stitch, twisted stitch or the wrong stitch (knit instead of purl or vice versa).
  2. Release the top stitch in the column directly above the offender.  In my case, it was 70 or so rows above.  *Note to self – periodically check knitting for dropped, twisted or the wrong stitch.  Don’t wait until the end to look!
  3. Run, stitch, run!  Help the run along all the way down to the secured stitch.  I was amazed at how much yarn one little stitch used.  Twist that stitch and it will make a tight ridge on the wrong side.
  4. and …
  5. Use a crochet hook, preferably one the matches your needle size…
  6. …and following the stitch pattern, pick up the stitch and reknit it and all the other stitches in that column up to the top.  Fortunately, the stockinette stitch is the easiest to pick up and reknit.  See my fingers poking through the run!?
  7. Secure the stitch onto the tip of the knitting needle.
  8. Repeat until all stitches are secured, accounted for and where they belong.
  9. No more twisted stitches.  They might be a bit tight but once I give them a good soak, they should will (hopefully) relax a bit though I’ve not tried it with this yarn. And the purl bump is gone because I fixed it before I took these pictures.

Even though I had several twisted stitches to do, I only did one column at a time.  Seeing how much yarn one stitch uses, it can be easy to pick up the wrong section of yarn or in the wrong row order if there is more than one stitch worth of yarn. The problem(s) that creates is not worth the perceived time saved.  Trust me.  Experience is a great teacher.

Now all I have to do is reknit the toe and knit the second sock.