I’m really concerned about how little trouble I am having with my revamped Monkey socks. I had started them in September, done a lot in a little time, and then got bored with all of the purling and stopped. Good thing.

It turned out that I had been knitting them backwards; I’d pushed the right side into my the space between my DPNs, and therefore was knitting the whole thing in reverse. Stupid, but it was still okay, at least until I went and did the heel inside out, too. Then I was all messed up. I frogged the whole thing, and started over again this Tuesday. Right now, I’m about to start decreasing, and I feel so much better about my skills as a knitter, and my ability to read and understand a pattern. Also, I got to practice my short row heels again and am really getting the hang of it now, which is awesome.

I can see why people keep making these socks again and again (the other day I met a woman who has made 5 pairs of Monkeys in a very short time). They’re cute, fun, and really easy, and I think I will make myself a pair soon, after I get through all of the obligatory knitting that I need to finish up.

I had high hopes for the scarf that I was going to make Satanski. I sat down, thought of a pattern, and charted it. All was well, until I realized that my chart was not taking into account the two decreases I need to work on each row to even out the two yarn overs I was including. I think I tried to get too fancy, too fast, and the whole thing just annoyed me. So I decided to modify a baby blanket pattern from Debbie Stoller’s Stitch and Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook and make it into a scarf instead. I’ve made the Big, Bad Baby Blanket a couple of times already (and I’m pretty sure I have a third one somewhere on a set of circulars), so by now the pattern is pretty much dead easy for me. I’m hoping that I will have enough yarn left over afterward to make the kid a pair of mittens, or even a hat. I can’t remember what the name of the yarn is, because I bought and had it wound in Vermont, and cannot find the label at all. I just started it yesterday, but it’s kid-sized and knitting up quickly, so I will upload photos once I get home from work.

My OpArt is coming along well. I’m up to 132 stitches in each section. I need to pay more attention though, because a couple of rounds ago I dropped a stitch about six rows down, and that was super annoying to fix in pattern.

I somehow acquired a large hole in my knitting, but one that I can fix when I’m cleaning up and weaving in ends. I also somehow only had 88 stitches in one section when I should have had 90. I fixed it using an invisible increase I learned of on knittinghelp.com, but it should not have been necessary. I’m trying to decide whether I want to start using safety pins to mark 20s of stitches, so I have a better idea of how many stitches are in each section. I think I may. I’m up to 94 stitches now, and it’s such slow going. I’m motivated, though, because I can now see the blanket’s square shape in a way that I couldn’t before.