What I Knitted on the Trip

Thank you to all the folks who have sent me good wishes after the passing away of my little boy, Morgan. I greatly appreciate it. You have given me more comfort than you know.

Monday was, I think, the hardest day of my life. I'm glad it's over. Morgans kidneys were failing, and he was choking because his trachea kept collapsing. I couldn't let him suffer any more. The experience was not as horrible as I thought it would be. It was surprisingly peaceful, and the last thing he felt was me kissing his little ears and telling him how much I love him.

As promised earlier, I will tell you what I knitted on the trip. I only worked on two projects. The monkey socks in yesterdays post, which I completed. Then I started the second pair of socks for Judy. I cast the first one on as we were crossing Indiana and have finished it.

I just love the stitch pattern.

It's called Herringbone Rib and is in the book Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn by Carol Sulcoski. It's a slip stitch pattern, of sorts. It's an easy peasy 2 row 12 stitch repeat, but a bit labor intensive in that it takes a bit of time to knit it. I decided not to carry the stitch pattern into the foot because it uses more than the average yarn. As it is, I'm not sure I have enough for the second sock. I weighed the leftovers and there's just 2 tenths of an ounce more left than the finished sock weighs. That is cutting it close!

I cast on the second sock a few days ago. I was very careful to make sure I cast on in the same place of the colorway pattern repeat so the second sock will match fairly well. I've run into a big problem.

See that white stripe? There's a defect in the colorway pattern repeat right there that is nowhere else in the skein. It's supposed to be the pinky/purple color (see finished sock). Somehow, it didn't get dyed in that spot. I have an idea on how to fix it, but I don't know if I have enough yarn. It's a bit tricky. I'm thinking about it, and will tell you how I fixed it after doing so.

I started a beading project yesterday evening. My niece Lynne really made our visit wonderful so I want to thank her with a bracelet. It took me awhile to select the beads I'm going to use.

I had an idea for a double spiral, but it didn't work, so I've frogged it. I really wanted to use the round coral beads (they're real coral from a necklace I bought in Hawaii several years ago), but they are too big. Phooey. Time to come up with another idea.

Have a great evening.