I really really really really dislike things that don’t work the way they are supposed to. We had a “glitch” with The Loopy Ewe website yesterday, that made ordering impossible. (And later, made getting on the website at all, impossible.) Granted, things have gone extremely smoothly since we got it up and running, so maybe we were due, but I’m of the mindset that we should just stay smooth and glitch-free forever. Why do we have to be “due” for a glitch? So here are some things that don’t work, that bug me. (Why would you be interested in this? I don’t know.)

1. COMPUTERS. (Yes, that deserved to be in shouting capital letters.) I don’t like it when I am attempting to do something perfectly reasonable, and the computer fails to understand it. I certainly didn’t mean to add the little comma in the middle of the command that I typed out. Obviously a comma doesn’t go there, so why should that trip the whole thing up? Why can’t the computer think, “Hmm. That is not the place for a comma. She must’ve meant to type this other thing instead.” We can get a man on the moon, but we can’t make a computer that understands that we didn’t mean the typo? (Case in point – why do numbers 6-10 of this list look like a different font? Why isn’t the BOLD feature working on those? Why has everything that I tried to do to fix the situation failed? COMPUTERS.)
2. Dogs. Well, one dog in particular. When it’s time to go to bed, we let her outside (and back in) one last time. Most nights, I can call her in my sweetest and most inviting voice, and she still just lays there in the family room, looking at me like I’m nuts. (Especially if it is raining or cold out.) I frequently have to go in there, make eye contact with her, and then take her to the back door. Apparently she has me trained needs a personal escort.

3. COMPUTERS. Why does my whole website have to be “wonky” because something somewhere inside my computer (or out there in cyber-world, or on the web-hosts computer) decided that things were not going to work right today? Who delegated that power to them?

4. Shopping. I spent yesterday shopping/lunching with a friend. (She is the recipient of the brown/blue knitted bag from the previous blog and she liked it!) I like shopping. We went to Soft Surroundings and there are too many great things in that store. I found a denim jacket that I liked. Totally impractical. I have enough denim jackets. It didn’t work to tell myself that. I bought it.

5. COMPUTERS. If things aren’t going right, one of the things you can do is close the program down and start over. Or, shut your computer off and re-boot. Why? Why is it that I have to do that? Why can’t the computer/program just FIX itself and start working again? Why do I have to start over, and who decided that that would be the way it works?

6. Cats. What doesn’t work about cats? Their brains, when they see yarn. Fortunately, Zoe ignores yarn in balls/hanks/skeins, on shelves, on tables, on the floor …. unless there is the slightest little piece pulled out. If there is a loose loop, she is on it with all fours. “Zoe! No yarn!” does not compute, when she is in a wool-induced frenzy.

7. COMPUTERS. More to the point, when they’re supposed to be “talking” to the printer, and printing something out. Why do I sometimes get “printing has stopped”. Who told it to stop? And for what reason? These are things I want to know.

8. Cell phones. I cannot always be thinking ahead. There are some days that I rush out of the house, only to find my cell phone battery dead. Truly, is it my fault that the battery wasn’t charged the night before? I think not. What matters to me the next morning is that the cell phone is not working and I need it to be working.

9. COMPUTERS. More to the point – the internet connection on the computer. I wake up in the mornings and wander into the office to check email. One of the things I count on is being able to get on line. Once in awhile, it doesn’t work. That means that I spend an inordinate amount of time on hold with the high speed internet company, only to then have them tell me that “things look good on this end. It must be on your end.” Inexplicably, the problem usually self-corrects later in the day. All I know is that it didn’t work when I needed it to.

10. Having other things going on in your life when you’d really rather be knitting. Honestly, that just does not work. Who wants to be spending time on other things in life, when there are yarns just waiting to be knit up? Patterns calling your name? Something must be done about that. I’m open to suggestions. I don’t like things that don’t work.

Sheri IdiscoveredcakebattericecreamatColdStoneCreameryyesterday.Thatworks!!

Here in the U.S. we’re looking at a holiday weekend. Most people have Monday off, which gives us from Friday evening until Monday evening for KNITTING! Well … and family, of course. But here’s the thing about family. Sometimes they expect other things to happen in a weekend. Sometimes they expect houses to get cleaned, laundry to be done, meals to be made, outings to take place, and attention to be paid to them. (go figure) Lest you think that I am the only housecleaner, laundress, cook, and taxi service in our household, let me assure you that I am not. I have trained this family well. But I am always looking for ways to sneak in more knitting time. Thus, in anticipation of a longer-than-normal weekend, I have come up with some ways to insure more time with the knitting sticks. Do feel free to use any of these situations to your own advantage.

1. Plan for your knitting group to meet on Friday night, and announce this “unavoidable commitment” to your family ahead of time. It’s ok if you ARE the knitting group. You can find yourself a corner table at Starbucks, or the library, and knit all night long. I announced to Paul last night, “Julia and I have our knitting group here tonight.” His face was blank. “What knitting group? Where?” I replied, “Our regular knitting group. Here. From 7-10.” Then his eyes narrowed suspiciously, “Who is in the group?” I grinned, “Me and Jules.” We had a fun knitting group time.

2. Get up early on Saturday and announce that you’re going to go get donuts for everyone. They will be so delighted at the prospect, that no one will ever suspect that you sat in the car in the parking lot for a half hour, knitting away, before going in to buy the donuts.

3. Of course you will have “had too many donuts and my stomach is feeling kind of upset” by mid-morning. This is good for another half hour of knitting in the bathroom, which no one will question, given the amount of donuts you ate.

4. In the afternoon, that ol’ headache will pop up (again, easily blamed on the sugar overload from donuts) and you will “have to lie down for a few minutes to nip this in the bud”. If you have hidden your knitting under your pillow ahead of time, it’s good for almost an hour of knitting, depending on how worried your family may be about you. If they’re the insensitive types, you might get in an hour and a half before someone comes to check on you.

5. By evening, you have had such a harrowing day, that no one will begrudge you a couple of hours for knitting. In fact, if you wash all of your makeup off before showing up for dinner, they may just look at you in alarm and insist that you put your feet up and take it easy all night long. (With your knitting, of course.)

6. Everyone knows that Sunday is a day of REST. Can you think of anything more restful than knitting peacefully in the easy chair? This weekend seems like a good time to start enforcing the Sunday Family Rest Day. No chores, no errands, no cooking (well, if you can get away with that) – just rest. And knitting.

7. By mid-afternoon on Sunday, make this announcement to your family: “Hey! You know what would be fun? Let’s order a pizza and have Family Movie Night tonight!” They will assume that you’re doing it all for them and will look forward to an enjoyable evening spent together in the family room. You, will gain several hours of knitting time in the family room.

8. By Monday morning (the holiday), you won’t be able to get away with another donut run. However, it seems like a good time to announce that you have “some serious research to do” and that you need “a few hours of quiet to be able to concentrate” because you have “a project due within the next couple of weeks” and you need to just “buckle down and knock it out”. Then give them all a sad, sad look, and disappear behind the closed bedroom door, promising them that you’ll work as fast as you can and that when you’re done, you’ll all do something fun together. (Remember to put your knitting in their ahead of time. They will get suspicious if you have to come back out and find your knitting bag.)

9. Around lunch time, wander out of your knitting working room, and announce that you’re making good progress on the project, but that you will need to give it a couple more hours to finish up. Hand over some cash so that they can head out to a good movie while you finish up your knitting important work project.

10. By Monday night, you will be ready to get your mind off of the fun weekend and “start thinking about and planning for the week ahead”. Of course you do this best by getting into your knitting zone and meditating upon the week past and the week to come. Make sure that in the course of an hour of knitting, you: wrinkle your eyebrows as you think out a problem, nod and smile as the solution comes to you, say “Hmm…..” once in awhile, and then after an hour, announce, “Ok! I have the whole week planned out!”

Then you might want to suggest a game of Uno or Scrabble. After all, it’s a holiday weekend, meant to be enjoyed with your family, for pete’s sake.

Sheri hopingthatallofyouhaveasafeweekendfulloffamilyfun….andKNITTING!

Today’s post is going to make you feel really smart about your knitting skills. You will read through this list and say, “I can’t believe she didn’t know better than that.” over and over. It’s always nice to start Mondays out by feeling good about yourself. So here are my top ten dumb knitting mistakes. I should probably do a new “dumb mistakes” list every year, but there comes a point where you want to stop admitting them.

1. I cast on 20 stitches for my first scarf and it looked so wimpy and narrow. I kept casting more and more stitches on until it looked “wide enough”. No one told me it would grow wider looking as it grew taller. It ended up being WAY too wide. The scarf ended up being a shawl. Sort of.

2. On my second scarf – I repeated the whole process because I didn’t learn the lesson with my first scarf. (The conversation in my brain probably went like this: “Hmmm. 20 stitches. Looks too narrow. Must add more.” to which my other self replied, “Oh, but remember your first scarf? You know it will grow bigger as you knit it. Stop now and back away from the needles.” My smarter first self replied, “It’s just too narrow. I know best. I’m adding 20 more stitches in there.” ) The scarf ended up being frogged.

3. Started with the right amount of stitches on my third scarf (see, I learned), but still accidently added in too many stitches as I knit along on it. None of the directions for the scarf said M1, but I did it anyway. The scarf ended up being frogged.

4. When I graduated from garter stitch scarves and decided to make my first bag, I kept forgetting if I was on a knit row or a purl row, so I had to put a rubber band on one of my needles as a guide. If the knitting was on that needle, then I was on a knit side. If the knitting was on the other needle, I was on a purl side. (Yes – I have since learned to identify a knit row and a purl row. I don’t know what my problem was with that bag.)

5. Under-felted my next bag and sewed the suede bottom on it anyway because I didn’t really think it would matter. I then had to unattach the suede bottom and re-felt it when I realized that my knitting needles (it was a knitting project bag) kept poking through the side. Apparently the degree of felting really does matter.

6. Worked on my next bag with circular needles – my first time with that. It said stockinette stitch, and of course I knew that meant knit a row, purl a row. After a few rows, I realized it was looking weird. I couldn’t figure out why. Then I found out that when knitting on circulars, you just keep knitting all rows for stockinette stitch.

7. Made a hole-y mess of my first attempt at yarn-overs, and so I gave up ever knitting lace or anything else that would require one. Then I had the nice lady at my LYS show me how to do it. (Honestly, if you’re trying it by yourself, is there anything in the way it is worked, and the way it comes out in that first row, that makes you think you have done it right? Anything at all?) I am glad to report that I have them down pat, now, and can do lace patterns.

8. On my first sweater, I didn’t read the directions closely enough to learn that the ribbing on a sweater should be knit with a different size needles. Had to frog that.

9. Knitted a lovely hat (the Bias Hat out of Not Just More Socks) that is big enough for a woman from the 60′s with a bouffant hairdo. I love the pattern and I love the way the self-striping yarn worked together on the top. I kept it in tact, so that when the bouffant lady shows up at my doorstep, I have a present for her.

10. I knit my first sock by reading the directions and teaching myself. (There is a problem with that right there.) It was a toe-up sock, and I thought that I was supposed to wrap and re-slip ALL the stitches each time I did a row in my first short-row toe. So for the first row, I slipped and wrapped the last stitch. For the next row, I slipped and wrapped the first one AND the second one. For the third row, I slipped and wrapped the first, second and third stitch, etc. I was concerned about the long piece of yarn wrapped around all of those stitches – how does one hide that, I wondered? sigh. I didn’t frog it. Even though it was wrong, it was still looking like a real toe on a real sock and I was too in love with the idea of knitting my first sock, that I just kept on going. By the time I got to the heel and did it, I knew it was wrong, so I frogged the heel. I figured out how to short-row correctly and did the heel the right way. I still have an interesting “short-rowed-toe” on that first sock.

Sheri there,nowdon’tyoufeelawholelotsmarterthanmeinyourknitting?HaveagoodMonday!

Did you know that sock yarn doesn’t count as stash? It doesn’t. (And I love that.) Here’s why:

1. One or two balls/hanks/skeins of sock yarn don’t even take up enough space to matter. What? You have multiple yarn to be knit into socks? Yeah, but each bit of yarn for each pair of socks doesn’t take up much space – and that’s the way you count it.

2. In most parts of the world, socks are a necessity at some point of the year. (Except to my friend Michelle in CA who wears sandals when she visits CO in the winter. She’s not getting a pair of handknit socks from me. Ever.)

3. Socks being the necessity that they are, means that the yarns you have set aside to make socks with are also a necessity. That might even mean that the sock yarn purchases need to come out of the family household budget, but I’m still contemplating that.

4. You already know that these little things knit up just oh-so-quick. I’m thinking you can knit a pair a week, conservatively. That means 52 pairs a year. You’re going to need a LOT of sock yarn for that. What? You knit other things besides yarn? Ok. Let’s be conservative and say you only do 2 pairs of socks a month. That’s still 24 pairs a year. That’s a lot of sock yarn that you’ll be using up. Anything that you use up that quickly doesn’t have time to be “stash”.

5. You just don’t know what kind of a mood you’ll be in when you pick your next sock yarn to knit up. If you’re in a bad mood, you might need blacks/dark greens/blues/browns. If you’re in a lighthearted mood, you might need pastels or brights. You just can’t limit yourself to a couple of choices on hand. Sock yarns, therefore, are mood matchers. Not stash.

6. You might get frustrated with a challenging lace pattern on the cuff one night, and need to start a toe-up simple sock to sooth your ruffled feathers. Obviously you need new sock yarn to choose from. And depending on your mood, you need to have CHOICES. (See #5) Sock yarns are mood adjustors. Not stash.

7. You might get bored with the simple rib pattern that you have chosen for the cuff, and need to start a new pair. (See #6. And then see #5.) Sock yarns are brain challengers. Not stash.

8. All of your sock yarns have a purpose and a specific project designation when you buy them. You’re making socks. Thus, I don’t believe they qualify for the TRUE meaning of the word stash, which is “I have no idea what I’ll use it for but if I don’t buy this yarn now it will be gone when I think of something to use it for and come back to buy it later.” (see previous blog) Sock yarns have a true identity, so they can’t be stash. (A perfect example of “get it when you see it because it will be gone when you come back for it later”? Schaefer Anne and Lola, which are one of a kind colorways. When they’re gone, they’re gone. I pick those colors out first, when adding to my personal sock yarn buffet.)

9. No yarns bought to make gifts for others, count as stash. They come under the GIFT category – and need I say, from the GIFT BUDGET, not your yarn budget.

10. It’s a lot of fun to buy sock yarns, because there are so many wonderful patterned yarns, hand-dyed choices, different weights, etc. Not counting these yarns as official stash means you can indulge in all of the sock yarns you want – and what’s not to like about that? Sock yarns are happiness-inducers. Not stash.

So you see, sock yarns are many things (who knew?). But socks yarns are not counted as “stash”. I call it my “personal sock yarn buffet”. PSYB. It’s my job to keep the buffet full and enticing, right?

(The photo at the top of this list? That is my current PSYB. And actually, I took that last week before the Claudia Hand-Painted arrived. I added several of those wonderful yarns to my PSYB. Tomorrow, it will grow again, because the UPS man will have been here with more fun yarns for The Loopy Ewe … and me ….)

Sheri Ihavesomanysockyarnswaitingtobe”socked”butcontinuallyaddmore.Howmanydoyouhave?

1. While in progress, they look so dang complicated with all of those needles (or circular cables) sticking out. It impresses the beejeebers out of everyone around you.
2. They are such a portable project. Easy to knit under the table during a boring business meeting and not get caught. Not that I have any personal experience with that …..
3. You can finish them quickly and be on to the next wonderful skein of yarn that you’re just itching to knit up. (Also known as Reason #8 in “Top Ten Reasons for Buying Multiple Skeins at a Time.”)
4. If you find that you have to rip them back because the ankle/toe doesn’t fit (depending on which end you start on), it’s not really ALL that many stitches down the drain. Really.
5. You can wear a really wild color under your oh-so-conservative pants and tell yourself all day long that there is so much more to you than meets the eye. If only people knew.
6. There are multiple patterns and variations of ways to knit every part of the sock. You need never be bored. (Non sock-knitters don’t always get the beauty of this.)
7. Even new knitters can make socks and impress the heck out of themselves.
8. Since it looks complicated, you can excuse yourself from having to knit socks for others, if you choose. When they ask, you simply shake your head sadly and say, “Oh, I’d love to knit you a pair of socks. But as you can see, it’s so complicated and time consuming that I barely get enough knitting time to keep my own feet covered. I’m so sorry.” deep, sad sigh. sad look. (chuckle to yourself as you walk away….)
9. On the flip side, you can go ahead and knit socks for your dearest friends and family members and it will be the best present anyone has ever given them. That means a LOT of credit for you.
10. Once you have worn a pair of handknit socks, you will never want to go back to commercially made socks again. (But you’re a sockknitter – you already know that.)

Got any more reasons that need to be added to this list?

Sheri Ijusttalkedmyselfintotakingtherestofthedayofftoknitonmysocksgeethatwaseasy