shoe-nip

Not a lot of knitting over here today. I hung out with my quilting buddies, had sushi for lunch, and then got myself a camping haircut (you know - something that will make my hair look good straight out of the sleeping bag).

I also did a little shopping for hubby's mountain bike race this weekend. I got a small backpack to haul around my essentials for the day and I bought hubby a little something to wear on race day - SpeeDe Slo Poke socks. Last year, he did a lot of training and he finished 45 mins faster than the previous year. I don't think he's in tip-top form this time plus there's been rain so I don't expect a speedy finish. But as long as he can cross the finish line and not need an ambulance, I'll be happy to wait for him.

I did do enough knitting to solve my biasing problem. I read about knitting from the other end of the skein. So I tried that and it works. There is still a slight bias but nowhere near as bad as the first swatch. Now that the problem is solved, I just need to work up the courage to cast on the 200-something stitches and join in the round without ending up with a moebius.

Since there are no knitting pictures, I will distract you with a series of Ricky pictures. A little explanation first - Ricky loves shoes. A freshly taken-off shoe is catnip for him. He runs to the door when hubby comes home from work and he'll go straight for the shoes. One time, Ricky got his head stuck in a boot and we had to pull it off for him. Another time, he didn't even wait for my friend to take off his shoes. He just tried to cram his snout into the shoe with the foot still in it! So without further delay, I present "shoe-nip"...

love my monkey

It's daylight and here's a flash free monkey picture. The colours are really hard to capture because there's so many of them. I've cast on the second sock this morning.

I washed my silk swatch with a little shampoo this morning (it's recommended that you use something like dish soap to get rid of the machine oil but I was too chicken to do it) and chucked it into the dryer. Before washing, I was getting 7.5 sts/inch but after washing, it's 6 sts/inch which is exactly the gauge I was expecting (I'm very lucky when it comes to getting gauge). The swatch is soft and drapey and beautiful. But can you see the problem?

See how the swatch is kinda leaning towards the right. I'm not sure why it's biasing so I don't know how to fix it. Do any of you have suggestions? Is it because I plied the yarn rather than twisting it? The nightie I want to knit is done in the round with distinct vertical elements in the lace so either I need to figure out how to fix the yarn or use something else for this project. Guess I'll be researching this topic rather than knitting Monkey today.