An octopus’s darnin’
Friday September 04th 2009, 6:40 pm
Filed under: Friends,Knit,LYS

About an hour ago, I only saw a blur with my glasses off, reading; Michelle saw the falcon swooping by in front of the window in its peregrinations.  She stood there, going, Wow!

I was wishing, More? Please?!

Note that the squirrels have again gone into deep hiding.

Meantime, last night at Purlescence, I said to Jasmin that some of you out there allowed as how you actually *liked* to kitchener.  (She was totally being set up and she knew it.) She said with immediate perkiness and the biggest grin, “*I* like to kitchener!”

And thus my socks took the easy way out, with both of us promising that, next time, I was to do it myself.  But she worked that grafting as easily as casting on a new project. ‘T’ain’t hard.

There will be next times: I started another pair today I’d been planning in Casbah, and DebbieR surprised me by having told the LYSOs from afar to gift me with their Jitterbug (it was a b.o.g.o. on their sale table) to keep me going with this whole sock thing.  Yeah, I know the racket: someone expresses interest knitting-wise, you bombard them with really good yarn, and you know they’re hooked on the spot. It’s insidious, I tell you.

The mail: Michelle’s first reaction to LauraN’s package was, a spider? No–an octopus, ready to get to work on socks: Mrs. Weasley’s airneedles have competition now.


18 Comments so far
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Lovely! How nice to get them ‘professionally’ grafted, too. 🙂 I love the octopus…of course.

Comment by Ruth 09.04.09 @ 10:07 pm

They are lovely. You are hooked. Thank you Jasmine. 😉

Comment by Pam 09.05.09 @ 4:35 am

Very clever grafting method, indeed. Reminds me of my favorite way to grow zucchini – mention to gardening friends that you didn’t plant any and wait for them to show up on your porch.

Comment by twinsetellen 09.05.09 @ 5:07 am

Grafting isn’t that bad, really! You are a master lace knitter, surely you can do it!

Comment by Lisa 09.05.09 @ 6:11 am

What fun! They look great. I bet your sock-knitting octopus can crank out some socks…

Comment by Channon 09.05.09 @ 7:22 am

I found that the secret to kitchenering was to say what I was doing out loud until it was wired into my brain. However, if you want to save yourself that trouble, you could do a Judy Becker’s Magic Cast-on and knit toe-up. I’m just finishing a pair of socks using Casbah(so beautifully dyed) and working not just toe-up, but with Cat Bordhi’s Riverbed architecture where all the arch expansion increases are on the sole of the foot. How neat is that?? I just started knitting socks, but I can see that I’m becoming fanatical about the yarn. Cheers, Hazel.

Comment by Hazel Smith 09.05.09 @ 7:57 am

The book that contains the octopus pattern also contains a spider. I may try that, with Halloween approaching, but I thought you would like the octopus better. You’re more the Monterrey Bay sort than the Miss Muffet sort.

Comment by LauraN 09.05.09 @ 9:01 am

Isn’t it funny that even when you know you’re being sucked into the deep end of a new knitting obsession, there’s no way to avoid it? I’m so glad you asked a kitchener-lover to do it for you! 🙂

Comment by Jocelyn 09.05.09 @ 9:47 am

If I were a squirrel, I’d be in hiding, too.

Fun –

A fussy old widow named Pease
Thought her home was infested with fleas;
So she used gasoline,
And her form was last seen
Sailing over the tops of the trees

Comment by Don Meyer 09.05.09 @ 10:53 am

What a cute octopus!!
I need to find that pattern for my Godson :-}
And I am happy to see your socks :-}
I received Priscilla Gibson-Roberts Ethnic Socks book.. and I am in love with the pair on pages 26-27..
My dream knitting project :-}
I’ll be putting the handle on your bag today!!!
Mail goes out Next Friday (via Oscar post :-}

Comment by Diana Troldahl 09.05.09 @ 11:00 am

What can I say!

Comment by sherry in idaho 09.05.09 @ 12:06 pm

You kitchner like I used to fish. We lived at Sakonnet Point and I’d walk down to the dock and set my pail down and someone would fill it up. It worked for me. YUMMMMM You will love the jitterbug.No not the dance. That is nice sock yarn. Someone just socked it to you. Pat

Comment by pat flores 09.05.09 @ 4:55 pm

I loved Mrs Weasley’s air needles!!! If I could only figure out how to get a pair :P. *makes a mental note “gotta learn how to knit socks ;P”

Comment by LDSVenus 09.05.09 @ 8:39 pm

Yeah, Alison, we got you, needle, yarn, and Kitchner. The Socksters are on a roll! Enjoy the Jitterbug, it’s one of my favorites.

Comment by DebbieR 09.05.09 @ 8:54 pm

Sucker! Nope, not me, not in this lifetime, have fun, friend 😀

Love the titled pun 🙂

If we could all get a few pairs of Mrs. Weasley’s air needles, Christmas would take care of itself, lol!

Comment by Cathy (catsandyarn on Ravelry) 09.05.09 @ 10:06 pm

Beautiful socks! I really should try knitting socks as I think they are the only knitted gift that my hubby would really use with any frequency at all.

Comment by TripletMom 09.05.09 @ 11:49 pm

Tell Diana that the book with the octopus (soctopus?) pattern is called Amigurumi Knits by Hansi Singh.

Comment by LauraN 09.06.09 @ 8:00 pm

A second pair of socks? Have you been converted?

Kitchenering and I never got along. I know the technique, I even kinda liked doing it, but it always looked awful – have no idea what went wrong. So Ken and I had a deal – he kitchenered my socks and I weaved in his ends.

Comment by Lene 09.07.09 @ 7:32 am



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