Technical Difficulties

I'm so glad to hear that I'm not the only one off to a shaky start. Friday night I finished the second sock of a pair I am giving as a gift this coming weekend as I watched the Opening Ceremonies on TiVo. I was going out of town for the weekend so I packed everything I would need to cast on.

Eek! Size 5 needles to start? Good thing I read the start of the pattern before I finished packing. Since I'm doing a 1x1 rib at the bottom, I decided on the tubular cast on, a new trick for me.

FFWD to me sitting in the hotel room with a spare piece of sock yarn trying to do a provisional cast-on without a crochet hook. ARG.... So I tied the sock yarn to the main yarn and did a long-tail cast on using the sock yarn as the tail. All seemed to be going very well - 3 rows stockinette, then pick up the bottom stitches and keep going in rib, except worsted weight on size 5 hurts my hands...

Oh wait, I'm supposed to do the pick-up row in the ribbing? No wonder this row of purl looks funny...

RIP RIP RIP

Now wait a minute, how did I get 2 knits without a purl? ARG....

So last night when I got home I frogged it all again and started the cast-on over. Now I understand how it's supposed to work, and it looks like it's supposed to. I got through the size 5 ribbing, and now switch to 8's. OK, where is my other size 8 needle end for my Denise set? OMG I think it's back at the hotel. And it's midnight - so I'm sure it's gone for good. Good thing I have a Susan Bates metal size 8 circular needle - and the yarn seems to like the metal needle better than the plastic anyway, so maybe this is a good thing!

189 stitches x 9 more rows and then to the increases!

Speaking of technical difficulties, looks like Blogger's having its own issues. I hope this post sees the light of day!