Sunday, April 7, 2013

A good time was had by all

I returned home from knitting retreat just after noon today.   The facility was marvelous.  The food was great.  The company was exceptional.  I knit most of the time I was gone, except for Saturday afternoon when I finished all the stitch-in-the-ditch hand quilting on Emma's Quilt.

I was sure I would finish a pair of socks this weekend.  After all, one of the socks was finished on our trip.  at least 2" of the leg of the second sock was completed.  The socks are from DK weight yarn on #2 needles, which knits up much faster than the usual fingering yarn on #1 needles. 

By early Saturday afternoon I'd finished the gusset and was working on the foot.  It was then I decided I needed to try it on.  It was looking smaller than the other sock - I'd been thinking this for some time.  I figured my tension was just tighter.  Heaven knows why I never thought to try the sock on sooner, as it really looked small.  Needless to say, it was smaller than the other sock.  I couldn't even get my foot through the leg much less the heel onto my heel.  I imagine trying on my 6 year old granddaughter's socks would have looked similar. 

So I double and triple checked the pattern.  I always knit a size small, just making the foot longer.  Not so with the DK yarn and this pattern.  The first sock was a size medium, the second a size small.  No way to fix that except to rip it all out and start over.  At this point I took out the hand quilting while I was silently screaming in frustration.

After dinner, when I couldn't quilt anymore because I'd forgotten my ruler and marking tools for the border, I cast on the sock for the second time.  By the time I left this morning I was at the same point in the sock as I'd been before I ripped it out.  This time I'd tried it on to make sure it fit.  So  I should finish it sometime this week.   The other two knitting projects I'd taken along weren't even touched.

Some pictures from the weekend.

Group picture.  The Sister in the front is the director of the retreat center. 

Shirley dancing with her newly finished shawl

We ate well

Everyone is hard at work
I'm already looking forward to November's retreat.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful weekend we had!!!

Sister Vincent (the funny, wonderful one pictured) is the acting director, while the Superior (who was honored by something----there was a honorarium on the grand piano in the great room) was on a mission.

I was a little anxious about having a Knitting Retreat in a religious setting (I'm atheist), but was thoroughly won over by this retreat. What a wonderful setting, such good food, and such a great opportunity to make new friends, appreciate our fellow Guild members....and also, we raised over $200 for the Heifer Project this weekend: enough to buy a sheep! So Sweet!!!