The Virtual Knitter

We’re in the process of a massive back yard renovation.  We have had it nearly completely stripped and are rebuilding from the ground up (well, from below ground in some cases!)  When the work is completed we’ll have an easy-care Pacific Northwest garden. 

There’s just one problem that the landscapers won’t be dealing with - Frankenshed.  That’s the name I’ve affectionately given our very unusual shed.  You see, the original owner of our house was a sort of “do-it-yourself” type with rather odd taste and methods.  As a result, our home has a few peculiar features, one of which is Frankenshed. 

Frank is not only an unusual shape, but also constructed of unique materials – a concrete block foundation with heavy gauge corrigated steel walls and roof.  The foundation is very perminent, attached to a concrete slab that’s part of our hardscaping, so to replace Frank would be a big job that we can’t afford right now.  Besides, despite Frank’s odd, some might even say ugly, appearance, there’s something appealing to me in his post modern industrial design.   Below is a picture of Frank:

Pretty scary, isn’t he?  Let me tell you – Frank’s not going anywhere, so I’ve decided that I’ll just have to give him a makeover.  I’ve already decided I’ll paint the foundation and door – most likely a nice green.  But what else can I do to help him out?  I have a few small ideas starting to germinate, but I’d like your help. 

So, I’m having a Frankenshed Makeover contest.  I’d like you to submit your ideas to me.  Go all out - since it’s just ideas, anything goes (aside from tearing Frank down, that is).  My goals are to come up with something that can be done relatively inexpensively (a few hundred dollars at most), and without spending the rest of my life working on it.  So have at it – grab the photo if you want to, or download a higher resolution one here.  Feel free to use your favorite photo editing tools to embellish to illustrate your vision for Frank.  Please submit your ideas as a comment to this post.  If you have pictures to submit, you’ll need to host them somewhere on a photo sharing site and send a link.  I can grab any I want to share and upload to a future post. 

I’m looking forward to hearing about or seeing your creative ideas.  I’ll choose the best and give recognition (anonymously if you choose) in a future post.  I’ll even choose a first, second and third place winner for the most creative ideas.  Good luck and thank you!

Well, I finished one of my toe-up socks – still have to add the heel and finish off the second one.  However, I’m not at all happy, so I may just frog the whole project and chalk this one up to experience.  I learned several things – both what TO DO and what NOT TO DO when knitting a toe-up pair of socks, so I guess all is not lost, should I frog them.  I’m making a list of things learned so I’ll see this is a learning experience vs. a “socksaster”:

• Learned to knit two at a time
• Learned Judith’s Magic Cast On for toe up socks
• Learned to do an afterthought heel
• Learned the suspected bind off

But here are the problems and how I should fix them:

• Dropped a stitch so early on that I had to pick it up through several inches of the sock, which left a ridge where the guage is significantly tighter.  Note to self – count the stitches regularly to make sure none have been dropped.
• Got so excited about adding the waste yarn for the afterthought heel that I completely missed some ankle shaping in the pattern.  I don’t think this shaping was critical though, but it might have helped the fit.
• For a longer sock, it might be a good idea to do some increases in the leg to go over the wider part of my calf.  As it is, it’s too tight at the top!

Other observations

I didn’t like the afterthought heel decrease and finishing.  It was don with evenly divided decreases like a hat and finished off just like one too, so there’s a bump at the heel.  Doesn’t seem like it will wear well, and it looks sort of silly too.  I think for my next pair, I’ll learn a short row heel instead.  I think it will look much tidier.  I don’t want to be discouraged and stop trying to improve my socks skills, which I could easily have happen after this project.  Fortunately, I uesd really inexpensive yarn to make these, knowing that they were sort of experimental.  I’m going to rest from socks for a few days, and then forge ahead with another pair.

Image Test - my beautiful Kitty-boy, Rajah

Well, it appears that all that’s improved is that the uploader is different, and that you can resize the photo using the uploader.  I was able to choose from several sizes – the one above is “medium.”  I thought that it was going to allow me to show a small image linked to a larger one without having to manually link to it, but not so.  Oh well.  It’s still a little easier I guess.

Next thing I need to do is try to alter my stylesheets a bit.  I seem to have lost a small bit of my formatting, like my background color, during the upgrade.  I’m also working on a new header image, so that will come later.  I’m creating a cool new “Virtual Knitter” logo that I hope to use in the future.

I’m in the process of knitting a pair of socks, toe up, two at a time on circular needles.  This is the first time I’ve tried this technique – I like it very much as my socks will both be finished at the same time AND they’ll be the same size.  Since this is a “learning” project, I’m just using some inexpensive Red Heart “Heart & Sole” yarn, rather than digging into my stash.  Here’s a picture of the socks taken part way through the project:

Heart & Sole Socks in progress

As you can see, it’s a simple pattern – I’m just doing stockinette stitch for the whole thing until I get to the cuff, where I’ll switch to ribbing for about an inch and a half.  I’m also doing an ‘afterthought heel’ for the first time ever, to keep the striping consistent and create a bullseye effect at the heel.  That’s the last step after everything else is done.

Well, I’m nearing the start of my ribbing, so I decided to count stitches one final time to make sure everything was still on track.  YIKES!  One needle only had 33 stitches on it!  I had fiddled with the stitches at the point where the needles cross a few rows back, so I assumed I must have accidentally slid one stitch over to the other side.  Counted them, and nope, 34 on that needle.  Oh oh – had a dropped a stitch at some point?  I started closely inspecting the socks and found where I had dropped a stitch – way down about 3 or 4 inches up from the toe – yup – about 10 inches back!  Oh dear.  At this point, I had to put the socks away for a few hours and move on for a while:)

Well, came back to them last night and started picking up the dropped stitches with a crochet hook.  Things were going slow, and I was tired so I only did a few rows before retiring.  This morning, I picked up again, and struggled with it for a while, having difficulty due to the small guage.  After contemplating things for a while, I decided to try helping things along by using a #0 needle to lift the previous stitch up and out so I could more easily bring the new one I’d picked up with the crochet hook through without catching part of the new stitch.  WOW.  It worked like a charm and I managed to bring the dropped stitch back up to the top of the sock relatively smoothly and quickly.  The downside is that now I have a sort of ridge where the stitches are tighter in that line and puckering the fabric a bit. I assume (hope) this will all come out in the wash so to speak.  Regardless of whether or not it does though, at least I’ll have a wearable pair of socks that won’t run on me!  Up till now, I’ve only brought up dropped stithes two or three rows, so I’m pretty pleased with myself!