Randomly on Halloween

 1. Thanks for the patience you guys have shown over the last few days as the blog went up and down and up and down and commenting was shut off and came on and shut off and came on.

2. We think it should be more stable now (by we, I mean the amazing Ken.)

3. Although you can’t tell, it’s been upgraded to the most current version of Moveable Type.

4. This might make it possible for me to figure out a way to block the fantastic amount of content spam the blog has been targeted by.  (By fantastic, I mean incredible. 90 000 comments in the last few weeks.) As fast as I ban the offenders IP, another springs up. We (and again, that we is the amazing Ken) are looking at options that would help a lot – like a captcha or something like it. We’re hoping there’s one that’s fun and easy for you guys. (I’m highly motivated here, because I can never read those things.)

5. I’ve been knitting Joe socks for a while.

Two skeins of Huntington doesn’t quite make a pair of socks for my big footed husband, so I’d stretched it by adding stripes.  Three at the cuff, three at the toe.

6. Now it’s time to do the three stripes at the toe and I have apparently lost the little ball of leftovers I was using for the stripes.

7. Joe is pretty much a super conservative dresser, and so this is a bit of a thing.
Would you:

a) Get more Huntington in grey, and have a plain sock.
b) Have a hunt around the house and see if I can find something that’s sort of like the stripey stuff.
c) Go nuts.  Screaming pink stripes, or yellow, or something contrasting, because if it can’t match, what the hell.
d) Something really smart that you have thought of that I didn’t yet.

8. I am going to give a good talk in Rockland, Maine at Over the Rainbow Yarn on Saturday night.  I’m pretty sure there are still spots.  I’d love to see you. It’s super interesting and pretty fun.

9.  In our house, Halloween is known as "Joe’s Birthday Eve."

10. I will be handing out candy anyway.

11. Lou is dressing like a racoon.

278 thoughts on “Randomly on Halloween

  1. I’d go with option B since Joe is conservative. A little fraternal-twinniness shouldn’t be too big a problem since those stripes will hide inside the shoe, but one shouldn’t go off the deep end for husbands with large feet.

  2. I think first you’ll do c) and then settle on b). I also think if b) doesn’t work, you will set those socks aside until b) does work. 🙂 Looks like a tiger-stripe type of variegated. I bet it will show up!
    Happy Halloweeen!!!

  3. Um, Steph? Remember how cwazy the non-matching mittens made you, even though they weren’t for you? Do you think that you’d be able to handle having non-matching stripey socks, even though they aren’t for you? Methinks you need to have a looksee around the house and see if you can find the itty bitty bit of yarn you need…and Happy Hallowe’en! Would love to see a pic of wee Lou as a raccoon! 😀

  4. B, have a hunt around the house to find something similar and end up finding the ball of yarn that rolled away and caused all the trouble in the first place.

  5. I like those socks, those aren’t colors I’d ever think to put together but they look great. I hope you can find the rest of that yarn or something similar.

  6. Order more Huntington in grey, and while you’re waiting for it to arrive (not to bring up painful memories…), you will find the stripey stuff.
    So better order two (3?)… So you can use it when you no longer need it for these socks…
    H’mmmm. Therein lies one reason why our stashes get so big.

  7. B. Because there’s no way you’ve lost that yarn. It’s hiding, and you’re going to go looking for something else that will work, and end up finding precisely what you “lost”.

  8. I would personally tear the house apart looking for something similar, myself, but I’m like that. My husband wouldn’t care- he wears the screaming fluorescent yellow and green socks I made with perfect equanimity. Although it must be said also that he doesn’t necessarily notice that the socks he’s wearing are not remotely similar in color…

  9. Well, I like matchy-matchy and would be tempted to take the first sock apart in the foot only, and make the stripes smaller and do the same with the 2nd one. Of course that will only work if you have enough grey to finish them still.
    But that is just me, and my hubby has smaller feet.

  10. maybe knit him a secret message – something sweet like “I love you big feet and all” or something a little spicy to warm him every time he removes his shoes!

  11. You might find reCaptcha interesting – it’s the one with two words to figure out, one is the actual test that you’re a human, the other is from a book from somewhere like archive.org where the text conversion has gone off the rails.

  12. Option D.You could call Martha, since she helped you with the yarn for the baby blanket, maybe she has yarn for the stripes, too. (She was a blessing) If that doesn’t work, I would go with option B. One of my dogs always has a yarn in his mouth, who knows where he finds it. I could send him to help you. Whatever you do, they will look great.

  13. You’re going to have to look around for the missing yarn. The stripes are already racy enough for poor Joe, it just doesn’t seem nice not to match them.
    Unless he likes knowing which is the right sock and which is the left?
    Is there any way we can score pictures of Lou Racoon?

  14. I would hope that I could find a solid color in my stash (maybe cream…we always have cream) that would match a color in the stripes and then use the solid color for both toes and lose the lower stripes on the first sock.

  15. I’d keep looking for the lost ball of yarn — it will show up someday I’m sure. In the meantime I’d love to see a photo of Lou dressed as a raccoon! I made Orange jello shots for Halloween – that is about the extent of my involvement in Halloween 🙂

  16. Perhaps a message band instead of the stripes. In Amateur Radio the number 88 is often used in Morse Code to say ‘hugs and kisses’. A band of 88 88 88 88 would work or to be technically correct use the dits and dahs for morse code. Spacing is critical to get that right but it might suit Joe’s technical & conservative nature! Or my dh suggests 5 lines representing a music staff. Good luck.

  17. Stripes all the way (smile).
    Have a Happy Joe’s Birthday Eve.
    Love your humor – love that you share with all of us out here – please keep on doing all that you do.

  18. There is a better way – take out the toe of the other sock past the stripes, find some other sock yarn that you have enough of the do the stripes for both socks, don’t loose it, then have both toes, with stripes that are the same!

  19. Stephanie — see recent discussion re Sam and matchy matchy. There is only one thing to do. Rip out toe number 1. Find new ball of toe stripe yarn that’s not too crazy with leg stripe yarn. Knit toe stripes for both socks with that.
    (Of course, choice A, not even offered, would be to find the blinking little ball of stripe yarn that’s gone on holiday)

  20. You totally owe Ken a pair of socks. In fact I think we all owe Ken a pair of socks. Think of it – we could send him a lifetime supply!

  21. Never do computer upgrades during Mercury Retrograde. This is exactly the sort of problems that unfold. I don’t really understand Mercury retrograde except that through hard experience I have learned to respect the correlation. I used to book appointments for a consultant. During Mercury retrograde, which she followed, she would say for the next few weeks don’t book anything new, they won’t stick. Things we booked before might need a little adjusting but don’t book anything new. You’ll just end up redoing it all. I thought that was crazypants. I’m a good administrator, as evidenced by the usual smooth appointment bookings. Those appts in that few week period, every single one went sideways. Each and every one had to be rebooked. It was the third set of appts during Mercury retrograde that I finally followed her instructions and didn’t book anything new. I don’t understand it but I did learn to respect that something goes on and things go more smoothly when I respect it.

  22. Never do computer upgrades during Mercury Retrograde. This is exactly the sort of problems that unfold. I don’t really understand Mercury retrograde except that through hard experience I have learned to respect the correlation. I used to book appointments for a consultant. During Mercury retrograde, which she followed, she would say for the next few weeks don’t book anything new, they won’t stick. Things we booked before might need a little adjusting but don’t book anything new. You’ll just end up redoing it all. I thought that was crazypants. I’m a good administrator, as evidenced by the usual smooth appointment bookings. Those appts in that few week period, every single one went sideways. Each and every one had to be rebooked. It was the third set of appts during Mercury retrograde that I finally followed her instructions and didn’t book anything new. I don’t understand it but I did learn to respect that something goes on and things go more smoothly when I respect it.

  23. I say take out one of the stripes on the first sock and make it a different color. Then use the yarn to make 1-2 stripes on the second sock and a 3rd to match the alternate color on the first sock. Matchy Matchy!

  24. Stephanie – those socks are great! my conservative husband would love them – and walk around with a smile that he has “secret” stripes on his seemingling sober socks. I think – go buckwild crazy – neon orange! Or, because you adore Joe who seems like the most amazing man – you could 1) spin enough yarn and 2) dye to match the striping exactly. 😉 (you DID ask for ideas – you didn’t say they had to be GOOD ones) Good luck – I will watch with interest what you do

  25. Will you have exactly enough gray yarn, or a little extra? I would probably cut the first sock and remove two stripes, then reknit in gray, then make the one stripe a little longer and kitchener together. Then I’d make the second sock the same as the first. So there’d be three stripes at the top and one thick stripe on each toe. But I like things to be symmetrical and matchy and hate buying extra yarn to finish a project.

  26. I´d frog the first sock (the toe and the lower stripes) and make different stripes for the toes that are sort of like the upper stripes. If I´m making sense, which I´m not really sure about.
    Happy birthday to Joe!

  27. Oh – I don’t know! It looks to me like you have enough of the gray to finish the sock plain. But I would have another look around first (check those odd project bags – remembering the Rhinebeck socks)for the missing yarn. Whatever you do – I’m sure it will look great. Sure would love a pic of Lou in his Halloween costume. Bet it’s adorable. I agree – we should ALL send Ken some socks if someone (ahem!) would note his foot size. 😉

  28. I would wait for the missing yarn bit to turn up. Or if you could remember what it was, maybe a reader of the blog or a raveler would have some to spare? I like matchy things though.

  29. I would set these socks aside, and cast on for something else, while I continue looking for the stripe yarn that is in the house somewhere….
    Although my approach explains why I have a giant pile of WIPs and never seem to finish anything. Perhaps you should completely ignore my advice.

  30. I think that the two best parts on that list are “Joe’s Birthday Eve” and Lou being a raccoon!
    And besides, you can hand out candy and still make it a special night for him! haha
    Have an awesome Halloween!
    Katie =^..^=

  31. I tend to follow the “run in circles, scream and shout” method of finding things. They usually turn up once I am DONE doing that. Sigh. Happy searching or whatever. I would love to see a guy with the pink and yellow stripes, but…

  32. The captcha on the knitting cartoon Worsted for Wear is pretty cool, not to mention really easy to figure out. As for the socks, if he’s like my family the only option is to find the original ball that was lost and use it.

  33. I would look really hard for the scrap you had left. You know that you’re a lot more matchy-matchy than you think. Remember to check the suitcase. You’ve been traveling lately. I think you found a ball of yarn or something like that in your suitcase, that you had been looking for before….right?
    Good luck – and thanks, Ken, for keeping our Harlot blogging.

  34. Our second grandbaby will arrive tomorrow via induction and share a birthday with Joe!! Her blanket is finished– and a few other little knits.

  35. I’d start a new project that I was really excited about, a project so awsome it would make me forget about the grey socks. Given the way my universe seems to work, at this point I would immediately find the missing yarn.

  36. We have a family birthday tomorrow, too.
    Six years ago I sat here handing out candy feeling rounder than a pumpkin. 🙂
    Find a way to make the socks match. You know you will eventually, so start as you mean to go on.

  37. It’ll be frustrating, since you’ll have to start over, but:
    Take out all of the stripes in the toes and widen them for the cuffs.
    I don’t know if that will give you enough grey to finish, but that’s what makes sense to me.

  38. My plan of action would be b; c, then a, in that order!
    Wish I had a ‘d’ for you….but alas….i’m not a brilliant person.
    Gene

  39. I would have to find the stripe yarn. Fraternal does not work for me. I would enlist help to find the hiding yarn, read: move back all the furniture and restock every drawer and closet. Small yarnies like to hide in pockets and bags. Hugs and kisses to Ken and birthday wishes to Joe.

  40. I think you should undo the toe of the first sock, take the stripes out, then depending on how much yarn you have either do one or two stripes per toe instead, no stripes at all, or stripes with a different yarn!

  41. My husband has a number of pairs of socks with one different coloured toe. He calls those ones his “left” sock. (Because they’re not ‘quite right’.

  42. Don’t rip them back any further than you have to. If you can tolerate close, go for that. Otherwise rip the first far enough to make coordinating stripes so they’re the same.
    Little Lou raccoon would go perfectly with my 12 yr old the tree. It’s a poncho that was originally a white ghost, then dyed brown and fake leaves sewn on to be a pile of leaves, and now he’s tall enough that he’s a tree (wearing brown pants). We pinned on a bird plushy to make it more obvious.

  43. Look for the yarn but while looking for the misplaced yarn find some options and then ASK what he would like.
    Happy Birthday Joe!

  44. d) Can you remember what were you wearing the last time you knitted the stripes? Did any of the garments worn have pockets? If yes, check those. Are there any WIP bags the yarn might have escaped into? Could the errant yarn have got rolled up into a WIP? Have you checked the cutlery drawer/place where you put the mail that needs ‘something’ doing to it that can wait a day or so/Drawer of Doom in the kitchen (we all have one of those, don’t we?)/cupboard where you keep laundry soap/etc?

  45. b – hunt. Then c – craziness. That part is hidden in the shoe, right? 🙂
    I recently saw a captcha that was all numbers and it was SO much more pleasant than the letter ones, which I can’t ever read either.

  46. I’d question the cat…. my cats seem to think anything multicolored is theirs so maybe yours feels the same…
    Have fun in my home state, I will have to put that shop on my list for the yarn crawl *cough* I mean family vacation there next summer….

  47. I’ve seen the ‘solve this simple math problem and prove you are a human’ type set up ( 9 – 2 = ___ where you enter the answer) and think that is much easier that the captcha things… altho’ I don’t know how good of spam blocker is actually is, but you might want to look into it, as it’s no fuss to quickly do that for commenting. I vote for the amazeballs crazy pink/orange day glo stripey-ness, but really they’re Joe’s socks… what does he want?

  48. Well, I guess a racoon is better than one of those pesky huge Canadian squirrels I know you are so fond of… They are not interested in fiber theft at least.

  49. I, too, am married to a man with extraordinarily big feet. And also very very wide feet. It took two full skeins of yarn and FOREVER to knit him his socks. I told him he only gets one pair unless he is very very good – and no one can ever be that good!
    If we ever get divorced I get custody of those socks!

  50. Another vote for finding a scrap color that goes well with both, ripping back the first foot to the beginning of the contrasting stripes, and knitting both toes with the second contrast color. Then the socks match.

  51. Go on the hunt. Happy Birthday Eve Joe!! (also like Carol at 7:49’s suggestion and, of course, Refhead at 8:04 has a good point…

  52. d) “lose” the socks so that they will show up in your cupboard in six months, reunited with the stripe yarn, and just a few rounds and a toe away from being finished.

  53. Do B first. If that doesn’t work out, rip back the first sock to the beginning of the stripes in the foot and then choose another contrasting yarn that coordinates with both of the other yarns. That way top stripes match and toe stripes match also.

  54. Have a little talk with Millie, who might have “stashed” the little ball of stripey yarn? For sure my cats are the first ones I’d suspect.

  55. The Captcha idea is great if it blocks the spam — even if we sometimes have to type in two words before it works.
    I would make stripes of a different but beautiful color. The stripes don’t show, and it will make the socks completely unique.
    Tell Ken thanks from us all.

  56. Joe does not seem like someone who would get overly upset over the missing stripes. I would just get some more of the grey wool and finish. That way there will be plenty more for other pairs in the future. I really like the idea of the stripes on the foot. I have a size 12 (US) and find it a challenge to get a decent length on socks.

  57. Use a different color for the stripes in a matching or not matching stripe pattern. I think purposely not matching socks are fun.
    Or, if you were really crazy, you could knit back the first sock and use some of the original stripey yarn on the second sock and have 2 of one color on one sock and 2 of another color on the other sock.

  58. I don’t know if this will work with Moveable Type but I just installed this on my WordPress blog because I was feeling homicidal towards the spammers:
    http://akismet.com/
    (Was getting 500 spam comments a day.) I’m in love with it. It has caught ALL of the spam and I’ve not seen any of it.
    It does have plug-ins for other platforms other then wordpress but I’m not a computer guru so I couldn’t say for sure if it will fit your needs. All I know is that for $5 a month, it’s way worth the price.

  59. I hate to bring it up, but are those socks an appeasement measure until when the gansey gets finished (or did I miss the post where the gansey is all knitted up, finished, and modeled)? (Will trot on over to Ravelry to find out. Right after I hit “send.”)

  60. If you’re going to change up the comments, perhaps consider using Disqus? I follow several blogs that use it, so with one account I can comment across different websites. Very convenient. (For the record, I hate captcha – I can never make out the letters.)

  61. I would probably put it out of my mind for a day or so and the stripy one might just show up when it thinks you aren’t looking for it.

  62. I used to knit for a man who would only wear white cotton socks – yuck. Then he informed me I could knit black or navy – double yuck!! I found a nice splotchy navy/white & black/white yarn from Confetti. I will NOT knit solid black or navy socks for anyone!! Ever. Every pair of socks were different. I put red toes on one, blue toes on another, orange on a third. Then I added a stripe before the colored toe. Guys at work used to ask to see the current socks. As long as the main sock was navy or black, he was happy & eventually grew to love his wild toes through the comments of the envious guys at work.

  63. Kudos for your (especially Ken’s) valiant efforts to rid the comments of spam!
    If you do decide to use captcha, I’m strongly in favor of reCaptcha, which uses scrambled words from old books that have been scanned into electronic form. The scanners make a lot of mistakes that humans can correct. That makes me feel I’m doing something useful to preserve these books, and the time spent deciphering the scrambled text therefore has a purpose beyond just unlocking a (cyber) door.
    Like Lea at 9:19 p.m., I often have difficulty reading the artificial captchas, but find the words from old books much easier to decipher. After all, they’re words we already know, so our brains do some of the work automatically.

  64. More grey…
    Can I personally thank Ken and whatever magic he does to make your website so perfect? Thank you. Here is what I love about your website from a technological point of view:
    1. It loads instantly. More and more every site I go to feels the need to have crystal clear pictures, videos etc. that take forever to load. Not with yours – with yours it’s click and loaded and done. LOVE THAT.
    2. No ads. Yes I’ve bought all your books to support you and donated to your charities (both things I love but also to show support) – but you don’t have any ads. I’m sure it’s expensive to do this blog and pay Ken (can we all knit him something?) but you haven’t slowed the site down with adverstising.
    3. Easy to comment. Those 90,000 spams sound like a nightmare. But I just post without any trouble in the comments – it’s so easy- unlike every other blog I visit.
    4. Your archives are genius – simple and easy to access (again – no waiting – I click and it opens).
    5. The pictures are always loaded and clear – and your links always work easily (when we click on a Ravelry pattern etc.) – it’s easy.
    I love your blog for so many reasons – but these are the tech reasons.

  65. Time limit on option b (say about 30 minutes), and if that doesn’t work, go for stripes of another colour – but something fairly conservative.

  66. Oh, Lou! Do post a picture of little raccoon Lou. My cutest trick or treater this evening was a tiny little skunk who told me to have a really good evening.

  67. Find the missing yarn please. It’s really nice. And if it’s really lost, then it’s time for another yarn miracle. 😉

  68. Knit a heart motif or XOXO or whatever is meaningful to the two of you to send him lovely message or thought when he looks down at his toes!

  69. Knowing your aptitude for matching things up, I would hunt down that missing ball. If it would me, i would probably try to find something that is close enough. Since I regurarly knit socks with leftover bits of sockyarn I find in second hand shops, I dearly love those mismatched stripy things. I usually do the toes, heels, and cuffs in some widely contransting colors, and then maybe add some stripes to the legs… I used to do this because of the limited amount of yarn, but then got so used to it, than when I was faced with a full ball of yarn enough for a full pair od socks, I still found myself hunting down some contrasting bits for the toes/heels/cuffs.

  70. Missing yarn? Check a)under the sofa or b) the cat’s basket! My cat just loves small balls of yarn to play with – maybe I should teach him to knit?

  71. Happy Birthday Eve/Birthday to Joe! My mom was born on November 1st as well. I think that I would search for the missing yarn. I have a thing about matching just like you. Thanks for the link for the Huntington yarn. Looks like a nice solid yarn, and those stripes are a great way to use up leftovers. Thanks to Ken for all his hard work, and hope Lou had fun.

  72. Option E: Go look for that nice yarn that you want to use for the next baby project you really want to knit, or a yarn you can use to knit matching mittens for that beautiful Spectral cowl and than by accident find the missing yarn.

  73. If the stripes are too fancy, maybe something wild and funny and pink and girly on the UNDERSIDE only. Like an inside joke with no fear of being un-manned even in a shoes-off situation. That way, you get to have a little fun knitting it and he gets his lovely, plain socks.

  74. So very sorry to hear that spammers have been after you, but so very glad Ken is there diligently working to keep them away. Love the sock, but no ideas. My husband is conservative, too, so I know what you’re going through!

  75. In memory of Lou Reed, use any contrast yarn you have, and have the stripes read “Take a walk on the wild side.” Perhaps that would be cool enough for Joe not to care about the colors.

  76. Get more Huntington because it is the Deal-of-the-Day on Webs’s Facebook page today. It was meant to be!!
    PS I’ve posted on other blogs that use Captcha and if I can’t read the thing I guess and if I’m wrong it gives me a second try with a different image. I can usually read the second one. I think it would work fine for you.

  77. Considering the info you have to fill out to post a comment already, I’m surprised you get so much spam.
    I know that in Canada, we take our shoes off when we go in homes, so I understand wanting to match and being conservative. However, I don’t think the contrast colour you have is all that conservative. It’s rather bold! I’d be inclined to get another ball, rip the toe of the first one, and re-do it. Then, there’d probably be enough to make another, totally grey pair. Failing that, rip that toe and get a less contrasty grey or black. My man is like this too. However, he has a pair of orange underwear that I dyed when I was practicing dyeing gym shirts for our school’s athletic department LOL!

  78. I would have to go with “e” – relentlessly search for the stripey yarn already used on the rest of the sock. I’d like to say I could “let it go”, but I probably couldn’t. ;]

  79. I’d take about 30 minutes to find the matching yarn, and failing that go with glaringly contrasting stripes on the other foot.
    Point out to Joe the following:
    1. This provides him with a way to create even wear on his socks by switching left and right every so often (like tires! Joe likes car tires, right?)
    2. This makes it very clear that these are HIS socks and he’s manly enough to have pink stripes on his socks. If anyone asks why he has why he has pink stripes on one of his socks, he is to say loudly and gruffly, “BECAUSE IT’s PRETTY!”
    But most importantly –
    3. The stripes will be hidden in his shoes anyway.

  80. The multi yarn will turn up. The only alternative is that you finished it up and you would remember that. Grab an empty project bag to go on a flight and there it will be. It will be like Groundhog Day.
    Raccoon pictures pleeeease.

  81. I love the stripes. I know you will find the small amount it takes – even if you have to make a plea on your blog and travel to the US to find someone who has this yarn. OK, maybe not but I bet you will find it at your home.

  82. I’m flrying from South Texas to see you in Rockland. Crazy excited to meet you. It’s still in the 90s here (yuk). Looking forward to feeling some REAL fall weather and hearing your knittery talk.

  83. I’m flrying from South Texas to see you in Rockland. Crazy excited to meet you. It’s still in the 90s here (yuk). Looking forward to feeling some REAL fall weather and hearing your knittery talk.

  84. PS Your tension is so neat. Great photos. When I am knitting socks and doing the gusset/heel, I get a small hole which I compensate for by sewing but yours show no such hole. What is your secret or is there a youtube video (something) to show how to rectify this?

  85. Stop looking for the stripy stuff (or look instead for something else) and the missing yarn will turn up. And problably with a dozen other missing things as well!

  86. Well, I wouldn’t have expected to be saying this, but top-down is your saviour in this case. Find something in the stash that is really wild, and use that. It’s going to be in shoes anyway. At least when he’s out in public.

  87. We all know you’re going to keep looking for that ball until you find it 😉
    Can we see a pic of Lou if his parents don’t mind? I’m a sucker for babies in halloween costumes 😀

  88. 1. Search high and low for that ball (and ask for help from whatever you believe in to help you find it) 2. If you can’t find it, I would pick up the stitches above the foot stripes of the first sock and re-knit that toe. You surely have scrap yarn that you could use for both toe stripes that would somehow sort of match the rest of the sock.

  89. I’d definitely go for neon or something funky. Also, I heard on NPR about this capcha (sp??) thing that uses documents that need to be digitized, but that computers can’t read. So these words & phrases that can’t be digitized automatically get digitized by random people out on the interwebs, and the captcha actually serves a good purpose (besides blocking 90,000 spam messages… holy wow that’s a crap-ton!).
    So how’s that for a vague description? 🙂
    Also, I second Stephanie above – your site always loads easily, looks great, links work, it’s just a really nice site! I wouldn’t mind the addition of a spam blocker at all.

  90. Similar stripe colors, but not the same. This will help him ‘rotate’ the socks from left foot to right foot to avoid uneven wear. This also ensures that the new policy of non-matching toe stripes becomes a design element with a valid reason, not just a case of “I can’t find my left over yarn!”

  91. I’d find some red and maybe white and make a cute colorwork heart motif. Then I’d tell my husband I love his left foot more. 😀

  92. Hey Steph,
    there’s a little captcha type game that they force you to place over at the url shortening site http://ow.ly
    give it a try, something like that is better than the horrible captcha that are impossible to read x

  93. Those socks are stunning and I am sure you will find the missing yarn. Look between the couch cushions, under the furniture, in your purse. This is just a Mercury Retrograde prank to make you retrace your steps but you will find it. Happy Birthday to Joe!

  94. Unless you want to soon be knitting mates to your non-matching pair of socks, I’d search and search until the little stripey yarn is located. Or else post the colorway of the stripey yarn, so peeps can check their stashes for a remnant for you.

  95. I think you should do something screamingly different. Like knit some words in, like ‘Joe’s sock’ or ‘love your piggies’. If you had enough gray, you could knit it in that color and tell him the sock has a secret message (yes, I’m hilarious). Anyhoo, something screamingly different would insure he always wears a closed toe shoe, rather than wearing his socks with Birkenstocks (ugh).
    BTW, beautiful socks, love them!
    Of course, we must see pictures of Lou!
    Happy Birthday to Joe!

  96. I would put that sock aside until I could either: 1) Find the missing yarn OR 2) Find some yarn at your LYS that matches reasonably well with the upper stripes on the socks. Then you may have to rip out the toe on the other sock and get the two toes to match with the new yarn. Your conservative husband may smile sweetly and thank you for non-matching socks but never wear them–and that would be the worst!

  97. Take a look in your underwear drawer to make sure the yarn is not wound up neatly and stuck inside a bra! I can see that happening – here!

  98. I think you should go with Option E, hard as it may be to do. Put this project down for a week. On day 7, I bet the yarn will show up where you least expected it…. like in the cereal bowls…

  99. Option D–Rip out both socks and rewind the yarn to use for something else. Then the ball of yellow striped leftovers will surface and you can start all over again. You will have gained so much more knitting time than you had originally.

  100. Check all the suggested places for the missing yarn, and if it doesn’t turn up, go for option b. Later, when the missing yarn turns up (and you know it will) you could knit another “pair” like the first. Thus, two matching pairs of socks for Joe. Here’s wishing him a very Happy Birthday!

  101. “I would frog the toe of the first sock and split that stripey yarn in half for 3 thinner stripes on each toe.” This sounds like the best idea so far.
    My immmediate thought was, does Joe wear sandals with his socks? If not, any color could do. And then there’s E) Ask Joe what he thinks. LOL

  102. Oh, and you could add some black, doing duplicate stitch think black stripes on one or a few other stripes, then do black and gray stripes on the last toe.

  103. mmm. racoon. I’d love to look at a likeness of lou. 🙂 And, that itty bit is somewhere – maybe stuck in a fold of a knitting bag (ask me how I think that).

  104. I’d go with reCaptcha. While the process is always slightly annoying, once I heard an interview with one of the developers and that they were using these slightly irritating things to decipher OCR versions of old texts, it became much less annoying.

  105. This may be unthinkable to some knitters, undoing a perfectly good sock, but I would be tempted to take the first sock back to just one of color A stripes, replacing the next 2 stripes with a coordinating color B and then using the extra color A regained from the first sock to make a match to the newly completed sock 1.

  106. C – those stripes are going to be inside his shoes, so no one will see them. Go WILD!
    I read the “Worsted for Wear” comic – I like the captcha they use.

  107. If you need to finish it asap so as to move on in life, I’d rip first sock back, reclaim the contrast, insert other contrast, then share original contrast between the two toes. Otherwise, patience, Grasshopper. (Although grasshopper green might be the contrast to go with if ya just hefta getter done.)
    A polite request re captcha – could you please go with a numerical one, those oddly shaped letters are just too hard on the eyes. Thanks, eh!

  108. sorry but i would look around the house for the missing yarn. actually i would tear the house apart because it drives me crazy when i can’s find something i know i have. if i still can’t find it i would have to rip back the first sock and either give them both one stripe or make them both gray. yeah, i know they will be in shoes but i would KNOW. but that’s me. 🙂
    t

  109. I would look for a nice complementary color (an autumnal gold?) and knit the stripes in that. It would correspond well enough to not look too wild while still looking intentional and not like you’re trying to match it and failing.

  110. I’m thinking before you do anything re: socks, look in your purse, the yarn might be there next to your bra……just an idea.

  111. I think you should work on something else for a week while waiting for the stripe yarn to be found. You know you can never find it unless you stop looking. It will turn up in a cereal box or something.

  112. I think you should work on something else for a week while waiting for the stripe yarn to be found. You know you can never find it unless you stop looking. It will turn up in a cereal box or something.

  113. I don’t know what you will do about the sock. Maybe give it another try to find that little mess of yarn. BUT, I love what your original idea is and thanks for giving me inspiration.

  114. I vote for:
    a) Hunt a little more for that lost leftover ball.
    b) Find something similar to the stripey yarn and use that instead
    or
    c) Finish the rest of the sock in the plain grey and call that one his right sock, while the other is his left sock. It’s a design feature, man. 😉

  115. I am always so amazed at how beautiful your knitting is. It looks finished and blocked as you work…..the perfect stitches..well done.

  116. Put the socks aside until you lose something else (preferably unrelated to knitting). When you go looking for that item, the ball of leftovers will be found. You will not find the other item, though.
    PS capcha is fine. We are all used to it.

  117. You have to find the lost ball of yarn. There is no way around it. You will not be happy with anything less 🙂 Happy treasurehunt!

  118. You have to match the striping (for Joe, it’s not necessarily my own personal preference), if you really can’t find your remnant, can you put a call out to the knitterly world for someone else’s remnant of same colourway?

  119. I’d put the socks down and work on something else for a while. Let the socks leave your consciousness and wait for that little ball of lost yarn to find its way home.

  120. I would offer the socks to the stash. Forget about them. Start another pair. Then WHIZZ BANG MAGIC the little ball of leftovers will appear. That is karma. The wise and powerful ways of the world. Shazaam!

  121. Hello Stephanie: as a knitter with a substantial stash…core and otherwise I know there would be something that would match. Try having a look under your knitting chair that’s where I’ve been able to find many a wooly surprises, needles too!

  122. Is that the yarn from the STR sock club for the blunnie socks? I have some left if you want me to send it over. My husband loves those socks. Or is it monsoon? Also STR and also in my husbands sock drawer. I have that too. My husband has regular sized feet (somehow I feel bad saying he has small feet but he does, there I said it), therefore I always have a little yarn leftover. You’re welcome to it. Also thx for the great idea of using my leftover bits for stripes!

  123. Is that the yarn from the STR sock club for the blunnie socks? I have some left if you want me to send it over. My husband loves those socks. Or is it monsoon? Also STR and also in my husbands sock drawer. I have that too. My husband has regular sized feet (somehow I feel bad saying he has small feet but he does, there I said it), therefore I always have a little yarn leftover. You’re welcome to it. Also thx for the great idea of using my leftover bits for stripes!

  124. The sock yarn will resurface eventually… if and only if you start on something else and get wound up on that. Well, that’s the way things work around here, anyhow. Have fun! and I can;t wait to see where the errant ball makes its reappearance.

  125. Happy birthday, Joe!
    Love the stripes, and I can’t wait to see how you finish them off. I’m sure he’ll love them whatever you choose.

  126. My vote is for b. I’m often surprised at what I find just at the right time in my own stash and I have a small-ish stash. Nice looking socks btw.

  127. If the socks were for me, I’d go with some crazy colour for the stripy part. If they were for my husband, I’d hunt around to find something that matched pretty closely. But as he says, “Your feet are usually inside your shoes, so who’s going to know what your socks look like?” Unless, of course, you go to someone’s house and take your shoes off, as is the custom in many parts of Canada. In which case, you just act nonchalant and don’t point out the unmatched stripes, or whatever it is. No one will probably notice anyway.

  128. I love just how many people think the missing yarn is possibly in your bra, not the one you are wearing though. So that’s a good note! 🙂
    I think Tina & Cheryl both seem to have what you are looking for and are willing to share. I would try there if scouring the house isn’t working for you. Ripping back a perfectly good sock seems WRONG. But then again, I am that kinda girl.
    Happy Birthday Joe & thanks for keeping the blog up and running Ken!

  129. Give Joe the finished sock, and expect the yarn to turn up. When Joe is tired of waiting for the mate, it’s his choice…..

  130. My option e)may have already come up; there’s lots of comments there. I would rip out the toe of the first sock to the first toe stripe, divvy up the yellow yarn from those three stripes and make either one or two smaller stripes on each toe.

  131. I think you should post a bit of knitting each day, and commenters have to identify it. Fair isle, lace, cables, etc. Much easier to ead than those squinty letters.

  132. I also like the picture version of Captcha mentioned by Knitmomma at November 1, 2013 1:26 PM.
    FYI I saw four spam comments that got through before I posted this.

  133. I’ve been using Akismet for many years on my WordPress blog – although it doesn’t nearly get the amount of traffic yours does, it’s caught every single spam comment that’s hit my blog. Which at this point is not 90,000 in a few weeks, but definitely in the many many many thousands over the years. There’s a Movable Type plugin here that you might investigate:
    http://akismet.com/development/

  134. Akismet installed. The spam firehose now appears to be being diverted to the spam bucket; making sure a real comment still gets through.

  135. PS: If you can’t find an exact match for the stripes, I’d rip back the toe stripes on the finished sock, and make new toe stripes on both socks in a colour that complements the cuff stripes. Then they’d both still match. You’d have enough of the green that you could make the centre toe stripe on each sock match the cuff stripes.

  136. Didn’t you lose your knitting/underwear? in a hotel room recently? You should look around some more and be patient about it. They will show up shortly, I am pretty sure about it. Ha!

  137. My suggestion for the captcha was going to be exactly the same as that mentioned by Knitmomma at Nov 1, 1:26 PM, except she said it better.
    Happy Birthday to Joe. Mine is today, so we celebrated last night as well. 🙂 I hope you were able to find a good solution to the sock stripes.

  138. I love Rockland!!! Sorry I can’t be there to hear you! Make sure you go see the Oreo cows and walk to the lighthouse if you get the chance…..

  139. I say mix it up – after all, like someone said, who will see the toe – the inside of his shoe? Any way you work it out, it will be a nice sock. Just don’t wear your Birkenstocks with them.

  140. Me again Stephanie I’d love to get an easy peasy sock pattern?? any thoughts? I’ve seen you mention a vanilla sock pattern??? I think that’s what its called? I’d love to knit more socks and get used to casting on the stitches along the gusset of the sock mine always end up twisting the foot part and my toe ends up pointing in weird dirrections

  141. This was probably posted earlier, but here goes:
    The stripy yarn was lost, yes? You didn’t run out?
    Wash your car and it rains. Fix the socks and, yipes! The other skein will reappear.
    Something similar happened to me once, and thank goodness I didn’t try to fix things. I finally found the yarn.
    My vote: Put the socks aside until you find the skein. That, or put them aside until you find a match close enough to work.
    Best wishes, and you have my sympathy on the loss of your yarn.

  142. I could be wrong but those stripes look an awful lot like my Tamarack and Spruce in Woody sw mer/tencel which I gifted to you many years ago at Rhinebeck. Let me know and I will send you some.
    Those socks are coming out really nice.
    On the other hand if you have something close and he isn’t wearing birks then the toe stripes will disappear into his shoes.
    Namaste

  143. Just asked my husband, who wears mainly black and is a big fan of wool socks.
    He says a) it won’t matter if the stripes don’t match because they are in the shoe
    b) try and remember where you put the leftovers.
    He then apologised in case you didn’t think that comment was very helpful.

  144. Put the socks to one side with the Gansey, be patient, the “lost” yarn will show up and the socks will still be finished first

  145. Happy Birthday, Joe!
    The blog would like to see Lou the Racoon, if possible.
    I am usually not a matchy-matchy person. But, if I knew I still had the yarn “somewhere”, I would have to search for it until it was found. I would start with Rhinebeck knitting and purchases…and then other travel gear.
    Otherwise, I think I might pick up the three main colors and do a stripe of each. Or a plain toe.
    And we all await the finished picture to see what your decision was.
    (You could have set up a poll in your group on Ravelry for fast tallying of your choice of options!)

  146. I don’t suppose Joe would consider cutting the toes off one foot so that the second sock would fit without the stripes? No, I didn’t think so. My solution #1: set the socks aside while you order more gray yarn. The missing stripe yarn will show up in the meantime. My solution #2: sorry, don’t have one.

  147. Personally, I’d have a look around for the stripey stuff or something similar. If it’s nowhere to be found, go nuts! Do bright red stripes or neon green or whatever you find in your stash!

  148. well. I would suggest more gray….And as my husband pointed out, his shoe will cover up the missing foot stripes…only he will know. Btw? I love the stripe idea, makes a very sharp pair of socks.

  149. I would look for something similar and say it’s on your toe which is usually in a shoe so no one will see it anyway. Not sure if that will work, but you could give it a go.

  150. Unpick the toe of the first sock, reknit the toe stripes using 3 rnds of the contrast per stripe, rather than 6 rnds. Repeat with second sock.
    Otherwise, have you tried down the back of the sofa?

  151. Happy Birthday to Joe!
    And Stephanie, your insanely even stitches make me crazy! I could never achieve stockinette such as that.

  152. I’m a little afraid of telling you this because I don’t have all my ducks lined up. About Captcha, I used to think it was really, really annoying. And then I heard a story on NPR about what it is. The true nature of the beast is twofold: 1) the site using it gets secure comments and 2) the Captcha service is actually trying to decode texts that are hard to read. They are actually using us as guinea pigs in reading the stuff they give us to decode so they can preserve other texts. So every time we type something in to Captcha, they are using that information to digitally preserve some other text that’s in a sorry state. Once I knew that, I dropped all of my objections. Having been a literature major & all. I wish I could give you specifics on the show’s name that produced the story (I listen to a LOT of NPR) so you could look it up–actually, if I could do that, I would send you the link–but I hope this makes you feel a little better about possibly going that way. Good luck!

  153. About the socks: have Joe pick something from your leftovers for the final 3 stripes. Then he can’t complain. Also, how much will he wear them in front of non-knitters without his shoes on? If nobody but you & he know about the lack of symmetry, who cares?
    Again, good luck!

  154. Do you remember the make and model of the leftover yarn? If so, you can hunt on Ravelry for other people who have it in their stash. I have found Ravelry users to be exceptionally generous in their willingness to sell/trade yarn, in cases where another knitter has run out.
    (If you don’t remember the yarn specs off the top of your head, I bet if you post more info about it, someone here will be able to identify it within moments.)

  155. Don’t overlook weighing what you have left to make sure you don’t in fact have enough grey to finish. Three stripes doesn’t sound quite scientific enough to be able to tell :-).
    And good for you, containing spam. You get enough comments to read without getting so much more! A capcha is a pain, but a worthwhile pain. Consider reCAPTCHA http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore if you want to be doing good at the same time as protecting yourself.

  156. As to the missing yarn for the stripes, I have a few questions.
    1) Are these socks for a special occasion – one with a date attached to it?
    2) Do you have other projects in house only partially complete?
    3) Does Joe know these socks are for him?
    4) Have you taken this small ball for the stripes into the outside world?
    Because. . .if it never left the house, it’s only missing, not lost. And missing items often turn up when you aren’t frantically searching for them. Therefore I recommend doing something else while waiting for the small ball to make an appearance. If the socks were for his birthday (which I realize has come and gone), I would present them the way they were pictured and call it a “kit”. If you are the type who hates to have anything where it’s not where you thought it was, knitting something else will calm you down enough that your search will no longer be as frantic.
    I was totally incapable of reading all 227 previous comments. Sorry, people. So, in all likelihood you’ve already heard all this. Just remember that repetition of the same advice strengthens that advice.

  157. 1. I, like you and Sam and others, like things all matchy matchy. So I hope you have found the yarn by now. Although it’s also good to be flexible sometimes…I would hate ripping out the other toe so much that I would wait until the yarn shows up.
    2. Happy (Belated) Birthday to Joe!
    3. Giant-sized thanks to Ken (and you) for the great blog!

  158. I think your socks are terrific. But what I’m really writing you for is this: I LOVE the white baby blanket you just knit. Is there any chance you will write up the pattern to sell. I would be first in line. It is so beautiful. My daughters and daughters-in-law would love to cuddle their babies in such a beautiful creation.

  159. And this is why those of us who are OCD (er … extremely organized) make our socks two-at-a-time and toe-up.
    Lynda in Oregon

  160. you could take out the toe on sock A, and put just one stripe on the toe of each of the socks, then they would match, and still have the lovely stripes.
    -Sara

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