Camp Loopy Project Two

The WIP I’m going to share today has turned out to be quite the challenge project for me!

I was looking back at my blog entries to see when I last mentioned Project Two for Camp Loopy and found that I haven’t even mentioned it yet! Oops. Project Two for Camp Loopy, called “Hiking in the Mountains” is to be knit/crocheted between July 15th and August 15th and has to be either socks, mittens, or gloves with cables. I initially thought I’d do mittens since I do need a new pair, but it’s also the Summer of Socks and being the joiner that I am, I figured that I should knit a pair of socks for this one.

First I looked at Cookie A patterns, which are always a great place to start if you want cables. The German Stockings have been on my list to knit since I first saw them. After some thought, I decided against them. Knee socks knit in 4 weeks? That might be a bitt too challenging even for me. Then I found out that Michelle was going to be knitting them for her Camp Loopy Project Two, so I let her talk me into knitting them with her! I picked out a new-to-me yarn from The Loopy Ewe for this project: Socktopus Sokkusu Original in Fontainebleau.

Soctopus Sokkusu Original in Fontainebleau

The yarn arrived with plenty of time to get everything ready to cast on on July 15th. Winding it turned out to be a royal pain. I don’t know if it was my ball winder or the fact that this particular yarn seems more slick then any other yarn I’ve wound or knit with. It seemed to be wound loose in some spots of the skein and tighter in others, which definitely wasn’t helping it wind onto the ball winder evenly. Eventually I hand wound it into a ball, then unwound it into a big pile, then I was finally able to get it properly wound on the ball winder. I swear it must have taken nearly 3 hours to do. Not the best start and looking back it may have been a sign this project was going to be trouble.

Nearly two weeks in, I was hoping to be done or nearly done with the first sock. Now, I’m just hoping I’ll be able to get them done in time! At first I had no trouble. I cast on and knit the cuff. Once I finished that 2″ cuff I ran into trouble. The next part didn’t make sense and despite reading the “notes” part more then once, I didn’t see anything that applied to this portion and it still wasn’t making sense, so I just did the best I could and moved on. I started Chart A and was about halfway through it when I realized something wasn’t right. The chart for the left sock was on the inside of the leg. After a lot of looking at the pattern and cursing, I asked for help on Plurk. Julia was kind enough to help me out since she had the pattern on hand. Without her, I may not have figured out where I went wrong! Turns out that part right after the cuff is where I screwed it up. There’s a note about “b” being for the left sock and “c” being for the right sock in the notes section that I somehow managed to totally miss despite reading it multiple times. I needed to move the beginning of the round for things to properly line up. Riiiiiiiip.

After that, I get back to about where I’d frogged to and I realize “Huh. If I keep decreasing the way the pattern says to, I’m going to have to make decreases IN the charted part. Uh oh… something isn’t right.” Didn’t take long for me to realize that I didn’t reposition the beginning of the round after the calf increases. Ugh. I’m sure you know what happened next. Another ripping out session. 😦

I checked, re-checked, and checked once more just to be absolutely sure I had it right this time, I stared the chart and calf decreases for the 3rd time. Seems that the 3rd time is the charm in this case. I haven’t run into any more issues since and I’m now past the first chart and onto the second chart.

German Stocking Progress

I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get this first sock done really soon otherwise I’m not sure I’ll be able to get the second one done in time for the deadline. I did consider ripping it altogether and finding a different pattern after the second time I had to rip, but I decided against it. I was determined not to let this pattern get the best of me! It does seem to be going pretty quickly now and if it gets down to the wire with only a little left to go, maybe I’ll take a day or two mental health days off work to get them done. I think these socks will be great once they are done, I just hope it doesn’t knock me out of the running for that Wollmeise kit at the end!