The Tortoise and the Tortoise

I am the tortoise (I am not the Walrus. I’ll cede that distinction to Lennon McCartney). Or maybe I should say, I am the human equivalent of a knitting tortoise. If tortoises could knit. Whether I can or not still remains to be seen.

I asked for this spiffy little sock knitting loom for my birthday. My birthday was in October. I finally pulled this thing out two weeks ago. It’s not that I didn’t care about it, but I had so much other stuff going on that I didn’t have time to teach myself how to use it.

Book sold separately. True story.

The first time I used it, all the yarn hopped off the pegs before I could do anything with it. After a few more attempts, I came up with a better method to keep the yarn from escaping. Progress. Then I proceeded to knit a few rows as instructed by my book. Since this was the cuff of a sock, it started with ribbing. Knit 2, purl 2 around. Fair enough. Except the purl stitches had the annoying habit of… jumping off the peg. I finally figured out a way to stop that, too. I knitted probably ten rows and realized that it was not ribbed. Half the time, I forgot whether I was on a knit stitch or a purl stitch, so my tiny little swatch was just a mess. Off it came.

After four years in a bin, this sock yarn sees the light of day.

Mr. Gren suggested that I somehow mark the pegs to remind me which ones were knit and which one were purl. I took some masking tape and put tiny pieces in front of each of the pairs of knit stitch pegs. That did the trick! Now I can knit mindlessly and even get interrupted and still know what’s going on when I come back. Definitely an improvement.

Part of me wants to cut out uniform little rectangles of masking tape. The other part of me says, “Shut up and knit, crazy person!”

I have now managed to knit something like 19 or 20 rows. It is sloooow going. Not nearly as fast and efficient as knitting on the regular loom for scarves and sweaters and such. Because I have to work with the “active” yarn as I go around, I need one hand to hold it up against the pegs. Then my other hand is holding the hook. So I end up in the awkward and uncomfortable position of having the loom propped up against my body, head and shoulders hunched over to see what I’m doing, and right hand stabbing down at the yarn. It hurts. I had to quit after two nights because it was killing my wrist and my neck being bent up like that. A couple of days later, I decided to try it at a table. That definitely works better. Except… my table is on the cold side of the cabin and I don’t particularly like being over there. The view out the window is nice, but being cold is one the worst things in life to me. So I end up with this choice: Warm agony or Cold “comfort.” I’ve been opting for warm and the loom has stayed on the table.

Looks like ribs (this is the inside of the sock).

That means that I’ve only got about an inch and a quarter worth of work to show. Sorry. I’ll try not to be such a wimp this week. Maybe I’ll even add a whole ‘nother inch.