What I made, by Sharon

  We have a moth problem. I've known for quite a while that something has been gently nibbling at my knitwear, but I've been in denial (except when I've been sad about it). I'm an artist, and my tools of trade are wool.  On Thursday I put on a pair of long socks to wear around the house. When I took them off I discovered three large holes in the sole.  But I didn't notice them when I put the socks on, and normally holes in the sole = cold patches. Then on Friday I wore my Ancasta Dress . At the end of the day, after dinner, I noticed a hole in the sleeve, near the wrist.  I don't know if this is because the bugs eat nearly through the yarn, and then it comes apart on wearing, or if I just don't notice - although I have taken to checking my clothes before putting them on. Anyway, I took out each of my knitted items, gave them a shake and vacuumed the shelves. Hopefully that will minimise the damage, and - if nothing else - my jumpers are now folded pro...

We recently discovered that we had an infestation of carpet beetles. Loads of them. It was horrific. We found a couple of individual holes in things, they looked like this: Like s omeone had snipped a single thread. And then Leon started looking for the nest, and discovered it. What happened was, when we moved in three years ago Leon popped his old backpacking backpack under the bed. We usually take our hiking packs away with us, because we make hiking part of every trip these days. The cats had been sleeping on it, and it was covered in cat hair. It looks like the carpet beetle babies were living off those and a sheep skin we had under there. Leon spent a lot of time cleaning it out and vacuuming. We inspected all our knitwear and the only thing that was chewed up was a vest that Leon doesn't really wear. I wanted to re-use the wool, but when I tried to pull it out, I could not make it unravel. it's not felted or anything, it just wont go. Really odd. Anyway, it looks like w...

I'm knitting the Colour of Magic socks out of Jitterbug, and, as everyone knows, these skeins are short. I've used them before and never had a problem, probably because my feet are also short. But these socks are 68 stitches and quite long. ow I could have (should have?) done one less repeat on the leg. But I didn't and it looks like I'm going to run out of yarn. I have a few choices - I could rip it back to where I was on Friday afternoon and then knit on. I can keep knitting and hope it works out. I do have some similar colour yarn I could use for the toes. Someone on Ravelry has a ball of this yarn For Sale Or Trade - I could knit on and if I run out buy it from her. I could put out a call on Ravelry and see if anyone has any left overs of this colour. I feel paralysed by indecision and it all seems overly difficult right now. I mean it's just knitting, right?

I fell in love with the Millwater cowl because of it's elegant, slinky cables. When I knit them up they were more short, cute and stumpy. I thought maybe my gauge was off, but I measured it and it was spot on. Then I looked at the pattern again and realised I've misread it. I'm doing the cable crosses twice as often as I should. I've used exactly half the yarn, and am tossing up between ripping it back or keeping going exactly as I am been but I am leaning towards knitting the second half as per the pattern, so when doubled up around my neck I will get both effects. Or maybe that will look ridiculous, I don't know. What do you think?

Remember when I finished my Hermione's everyday socks and eventually gave them to my father ?    I handed to him in a zip lock bag as I was leaving a long and rather wine drenched dinner. He asked what they were, I said "a pair of socks" he looked vaguely confused and that, you would expect, would be that. When I went over to my parents place this week, my father said that the socks were too short for him, and that they fit my mother, who was wearing them. This really confused me, mainly because she was wearing the Blackrose socks that I gave her last year. E ventually, after much confusion, we found the new socks in my mother's sock drawer. My mother doesn't want more socks, she usually wears sandals. So now I'm ripping back the toe and reknitting them so they fit him, but I can't say I'm doing it with good grace. Two lessons learnt: Don't hand over unexpected gifts in ziplock bags as you are leaving, and make sure that the socks are long enough...