It's my knitting and I'll frog if I want to.

Today, a comparison 'loose' and firmer corrugated ribbing, I worked my way back to a few rounds of Pomatomus where I didn't pay close enough attention to the the chart, which means today I have both a frog and a tink report.

I know that this is probably taking perfection further than some - but those 3 rows of loose stitches I wrote about in my last post really annoyed me. They popped up, stood proud over the knit columns. Remember Monday night I had cast on and knit around 1 cm of corrugated ribbing? Then latter Tuesday I noticed how loose the red purls were, and ohh how they bugged me. So on Wednesday I removed the sleeve cuff from the needles and cast on again and knit just over 3 cm of ribbing - its always faster the second time? Why is that? Thats the frog report, I didn't really frog, but ripping off the needles is pretty close to frogging isn't it?

I also knit the first row of the colour work, as opposed to ribing that first row - and yes from the front it is neater, but now I have a row of red 'dashes' across the reverse, near the edge. I won't frog this, and I will do the same for the other sleeve, but . . . . I'm not sure I will do that again. Tidy frontage compromised with a red dashed line - you choose? And did the twisted german cast on prevent curl - well hard to say. You don't get much curl in a narrow tube like a sleeve - it takes a body sized tube to tell for sure. For now - I'll keep using a twisted German cast on.


So that little problem fixed, I knit on. Over the next few nights I finished the corrugated ribbing, and onto 16 rows of 2x2 checker board, and then the dotted stripes as done on the body. I've made good progress, the sleeve is now 14.5 cm. I am increasing every 6th row, using a paired 'knit into the stitch below - but twist it' increase. New technique I'm trying out, as seen on the EZ knitting glossary. What became more obvious in the photo, and I didn' even notice it in 'real life' is that snagged stitch about half way up the centre of the sleeve - going to have to fix that.


And Pomatomus, well - I had put pomatomus aside. With knitting round the heel and onto the foot came a need to follow the chart - closely. Cookie has worked out a very clever variation on the lace to make it fit the instep - but the rythm of the yarn overs and ssk's are not so obvious. I was enjoying knitting the sleeve - almost mindless round and round repetative colour work, and Pomatomus seemed like lots more attention would be required. Last night I deliberately selected the sock from the workbasket - and made myself get back into knitting her. It is ok - I made progress. I did have to frog back 3 rows after reaslising I had missed where yo started on the left end of the pattern. Tink - not frog - I'm not confident enought to frog lace - so tink it was.

Oh, I love the yarn, I love the heel, I love the twisted rib, but I don't like holes in my socks. I will finish this sock, and her mate - but right now I am not loving those holes. I've never really been a lace knitter, some how holes, any holes always seem loose and untidy so I am now wondering if Pomatomus could be knit as a solid, the increases by lifted or twisted yarn overs so the holes were minimised, but the waves of rib remained. Maybe I'm just to close, after all socks are work a whole body length from your eyes - and that far away the holes do look good.

any way - I'm away from Wednesday to Saturday again this week, for work, and to hand over the baby blanket to Gill, which will be good. I will try and post before I go. And I will miss knit night. This time I will take a whole set of needles with me - I'm not getting stuck in a far flung city with limited knitting tools again!