More water

I spent some time on the other project I have going yesterday.  One of the other ones anyway.  This is for my etsy store - atbluefox.etsy.com - which sells eco friendly kids creations.  I'm knitting up the same striped stocking already mentioned.  This time it is in green, tan, cream and a little brown.  These are organic cotton (with a little milk fiber thrown in - no I don't know what that is).  It's supposed to be knit in the round.  And while I know how to do that and it turns out alright when I do, I'm not a huge fan.  I'm not a huge fan no matter what I use, one circ, two circ, or four/five dpns.  I've tried them all and they all drive me nuts.  On the other hand I love to sew by hand and I don't mind sewing up knitting seams.  The result is that I would much rather put a seam in something.  So halfway through this stocking I got the brilliant idea to take it from dpns to straight stitches and see if I couldn't finish it up faster.  

There are some problems here I didn't think through though.  For one thing picking a spot to just open up in-the-round knitting does not give you the kind of flexibility to just add one straight needle that you might think it would.   So I had to use four needles to knit in a straight line.  I'm still not quite through that stage.  Then, late last night at some point, it occurred to me that up until this time there were no stitches added to make a selvage.  But now I will be needing a selvage to be able to sew these two seams together.  So I finally faced the inevitable conclusion that I would have to tear something out.  Either I tear out the "straight" stitches I've already done and go back to knitting in the round or I tear out the whole thing and knit it with a selvage.  

So today I started a totally new stocking in different colors.  

Today we got up and eventually headed out to the water park here on Oahu.  For those of you who think it's crazy to have a water park here where the beaches are fantastic, I'm in total agreement.  However, us locals do get bored of the beach.  There's all that sand to track around, inside the suit, in the car, in the house, in the shower.  Besides, where else can you surf the perfect standing wave that never varies or ride the lazy river around in shaded circles to your hearts content?  All those press photos of people standing around under waterfalls and enjoying sand covered bums are totally PR.  My baby's sand covered bum just means four days of trying to get it out of her diaper.  

We did have a phenomenal day.  And when we got home, after the bedtime mayhem, I started an entirely new stocking.  This one I'm going to trying knitting in the straight and see what happens.  Again I'm using organic cottons so I can sell this one.  Provided it turns out better than the last one.  This one is in blue, gray and white.  

You have to understand, I made a pledge with myself to finish and upload one project a week to my etsy site.  So far that hasn't happened.  But I'm getting a lot of knitting done.  It's mostly the taking pictures and uploading them that drives me nuts.  Anyway, back to my multiple stockings.  I figure by the time this is over, the girl's stockings should look great.