And the Gauntlet is Thrown...

My dear friend Chris has posed the challenge for a "Crank-a-thon" to see who can knit the most socks over the next two weeks. There's prizes involved and the spirit of friendly competition and camaraderie is in air. And honestly, all you have to do is make socks and post photos of them.

The task...to see who can make the most projects overall vs ribbed socks vs plain socks vs CSM projects other than socks and the list goes on. In theory, this is a fun idea. In reality, I'm lazy and a hopeless procrastinator. Perhaps if I had played more sports as a kid I'd be more competitive but it's just not in my nature. I posted the following diatribe to give them an idea that although I'd participate, it would be unlikely that I'd actually succeed.

Day 1: Look thoughtfully at the stash
Day 2: Wind yarn
Day 3: Decide I want to use different yarn
Day 4: Wind new yarn
Day 5: Start cranking with no success for some unknown reason.
Day 6: Decide a gin and tonic with friends is more fun and go out instead of cranking.
Day 7: Decide it’s the yarn so look at the stash some more.
Day 8: Choose new yarn and wind it up.
Day 9: Make a complete sock in about 1/2 hour.
Day 10: Think, "I got this, I made a sock last night in 1/2 hour, I’ll crank out 6 or 7 tomorrow." BBQ something nice.
Day 11: Ribber hates me, make a 5x1 mock rib pair instead but don’t close the toes.
Day 12: Force myself to work on the ribber.
Day 13: Finally finish the second ribbed sock but don’t close the toes.
Day 14: Come to the realization that I will come in last place and close the toes on the 5x1 mock-rib but since I don’t want to screw up the ribbed pair and it’s already dark, wait until tomorrow when I have/need natural light.
Day 14: In the evening Lie and say I left my camera at work and the phone is dead but I’ll post the ribbed pair tomorrow. It’s worked for Vickie but in the end she'll tell me I’m a liar and to "bite me" because I missed the deadline.
Day 15: Feel the shame and avoid the list entirely.

Tongue in cheek, maybe not? Tonight was Day 1. Here's what happened...

Day 1: Looked thoughtfully at the stash. Started cranking, phone rang, talked to Laura for 259 minutes and sit here now posting this nonsense at 1AM.

Definitely should have taken Little League more seriously.

The Ribber has been Conquered!!!

So to answer your question Joe... no, I do not plan on giving up on the ribber attachment! I do still love the 5x1 mock rib socks but the ribber had to be mastered!

It's a classic 1x1 rib cuff, followed by a 3x1 rib for the leg/foot. I was too high from tonight's success that I didn't even try to close the toe. We'll tackle that another day! If I do say so myself, Beauregard and I are definitely friends now!



If you can't tell, I'm thrilled with this milestone and I finished it before the end of the closing ceremonies. My own personal Olympic goal! Do you think if I send a pair to Olympic diver, Troy Dumais, he'll come to my house and thank me? It could happen, he's not always in the pool.

I had no idea I was so interested in diving!

Three Day Weekend

I had a 3-day weekend last weekend and it was great! I had Monday off for what my building claimed was an inspection of the fire alarm system. I thought they were going to come in, check the fire detectors and inspect the sprinkler system. This is what happened at 8:00 in the morning on my extra day off. I added the graphic so I could post it to youtube and embed it here. There was no actual fire.
;-)



This went on for 15 minutes, every 25 minutes and was blazingly loud (my crappy iPhone audio can't remotely compare to it live)! While it was going on, some guy knocked on my door. When I opened the door, he screamed at me over the audio from my unit combined now with the hallway audio.

Him: Can you hear it?
Me: Can I hear it? Of course I can hear it. They can hear it in Cuba.
Him: You're on a call with Cuba?
Me: No, I can hear it.
Him: Exactly, can you hear but in your unit?
Me: Yes, are we done.
Him: No, it's not done, it'll play until we check every unit.
Me. Thank you, do you need to come in? (I'm still thinking smoke detectors, etc)
Him: No, I don't. I'm sorry to interrupt your call.
Me: [Closes door]

Morale of the story...don't play games during a fire emergency test.

Anyway, after that, I had the whole day free. It was rainy, I ordered Chinese food, broke out the ice cream, turned on the Olympics (there was men's gymnastics, men's synchronized diving and men's swimming ... figure it out) and of course, Beau was home! I've been playing with tons of tension options to get the very best/tightest gauge possible on the machine. I'm still completely enamoured with the 5x1 mock rib. It's really a good looking combination. I think I like it even better than the 1x1 rib but I haven't tried a 5x1 actual rib. It's coming!

In the meantime, its pair was not part of the plan last weekend but today, with my new yarn carrier (the slotted kind) worked like a champ so no more knots under foot! But in the same breath, there were several mishaps in the process of pushing the gauge as hard as I did. I few destroyed needles, a dropped stitch on the toe that I didn't even see until I grafted it and a bobble on the grafting itself. We'll call them house socks! I love this machine!