suicidal DPNs; mitten cuff; yarn porn; food and porn (no, really!)

DPN tragedy, order of events:

• Snap size 1 DPN while knitting socks.
  
• Search for other set of size 1 DPNs. Only find aluminum set, which may be all I had. Don't use them as 1. they're aluminum (old yard sale find), and 2. I think they're mislabeled and actually size 2 DPNs.
• Go to LYS and buy new set of size 1 bamboo DPNs. yay!
• Come home and start using the new set to knit the socks. I'm a bit anal about using a matching set, so set all 4 surviving needles from the old set aside, and use all 5 new ones for the socks.
• Realize that if I want to start the second mitten, I need size 1 DPNs for the cuff. Knit sock onto the 4 surviving old size 1 DPNs, so I can use my matching set of 5 new needles for the mitten cuffs.
  
• Cast on for the second mitten, using my full set of new size 1 DPNs. My pristine set of DPNs. My virginal set of DPNs. Beautiful and smooth and ignorant of the evils of the world.
• About 1/3 of the way through the cuff, I fail to put down the free needle as I tug at a strand of yarn to break if off. I hear a crack. As my hand rebounded from pulling apart the yarn, it caused the needle I was holding to slam into my leg. It cracked.
  

Gaaaaaah!

Yes, I managed to break my second needle in 2 days, less than 12 hours after it emerged from its shiny new package. So now I have two sets of 4. Seeing as how I consider using 4 DPNs instead of 5 akin to picking my nose with a screwdriver (in other words, damn unpleasant), I am 1. forced to use a mismatched set to knit with (not the end of the world), 2. unable to work on the socks again until I'm done with the mitten cuff (also not the end of the world, but frustrating). Worst of all, I'm just plain furious at myself for doing something so damned stupid. Part of the reason why I'm so upset is that I also bought sock yarn yesterday. That, plus the needles, means I spent a bunch more than I had hoping to spend. So what do I do? I ruin my purchase in the same day. I'm so stupid and foolish.

Well, the good news is that I'm more than halfway done with the cuff. Soon I'll move onto my size 2 DPNs, which should be able to come through their time in my cursed hands more intact. I hope. Here is a picture. Notice the stitch marker! I don't really need a stitch marker to tell me where the end of the round is, but it's one of my new beaded markers, and I was eager to use it.



I love corrugated ribbing with an irrational passion. Sure, it's a bit more fiddly than regular fair isle knitting. But it looks so very pretty, and the more I knit, the more I like purling. Knitting may be faster, but I think purling is more relaxing.

I am knitting in my ends. It's a bit wonky now, as I have to skip stitches due to the corrugated ribbing. (Can't weave in on the purl bits.) But I think it's working just fine. I'm going to play with my technique when I get to the fair isle bits, in an effort to get something that will hold the yarn a bit more securely. My technique now is okay, but I think I can make it better.

Here is the Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn I bought yesterday. I don't even know if I should bother posting this, as I found it impossible to get a photo that really shows the colors off nicely. They look really muted and almost pastel here, compared to how vibrant and saturated they are in real life. The colorway is "Champlain Sunset". I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the yarn, yet. Obviously socks, but not sure what pattern. I may just go with a plain ribbed pattern, to show off the yarn.



Oh, and all of this talk of new stuff obviously means that I finished weaving in ends on the first mitten. I still need to block it, and will probably wait until both mittens are done and blocked before posting a "finished" picture. I'm a bit unsatisfied with the thumb - it's a tad short (will block out, I hope), and there are some mistakes. There are colorwork mistakes at the bottom that nobody will probably ever notice. I also flubbed the tip a bit, and it looks slightly ugly. I don't know how to fix it, so I will live with it, and hope the second one comes out better. The top of the hand of the mitten could also be better. It's just so hard to knit with decent tension when doing those tiny circumferences.


This post has been slightly depressing, at least for me, so I'm going to brighten it up with completely off topic stuff. As I was typing this, I was listening to public radio. I think the show might have been On the Media. I didn't hear the beginning of the interview, but from what I gather, they were interviewing a guy who was trying really hard to make a point about how food television is like porn. He talked about how filming food is much harder than it looks, kind of like oral sex. Then he went on to clarify, I think, that it's difficult to film oral sex, so I don't think the comment was on the difficulty of actually performing oral sex. Some other quotes:

• (On having multiple takes of finished pies or whatever, to make the final product look nicer and easier than it might otherwise): "This comes right out of porn ... You make your sex slop, instead of your food slop."
• "Iron Chef is the classic fetish porn film."

I'd die of laughter if laughing didn't make me cough uncontrollably, which might make me literally die of laughter. Yes, it has nothing to do with knitting. But this brilliant food-porn analogy, from public radio, had to be shared with the masses. Can't wait to see what sorts of search results lead to my blog, now! ;-)