A Knitter's Birthday Report

For my birthday, a gift card from Knit Picks came my way (thanks, Mum), and last week I finally decided what I wanted most. Yesterday, the box arrived.


Item number one: sock blockers:


I'll still take pictures of socks on feet, since that does show the socks as they are meant to be, but sometimes the detail you get on blockers is a different side of the story. I tested them out with the recently completed first raspberry sock:




Item number two: sock knitting needles, in six sizes:


The ones I have are all seven inches long, which I chose because when I tried shorter ones, in my early days of sock knitting, I felt insecure with them. Not enough to hold on to!

These days, being more comfortable with the process, I have been finding the needles longer than I need them to be:


Here you can see the new needle in front of the older one, next to the needle gauge.


And in action:


I knit with them last night, and they're a good length. (It's generally not advised to switch needles in the middle of a project, but I'm living on the edge.) Happy!

Item number three: a "cheat sheet" for the kitchener stitch (for grafting sock toes and so on):


It clips onto my sock tool kit, and is a tad more compact and durable than my previous method:


And it's just too cute, as a knitter, to have a kitchener dog tag. I suppose I could wear it around my neck to knitting events!

So that's my birthday fun. Otherwise, it's been a good weekend, a tad busy, slightly but not too headachy, fun with friends, seeing Harry Potter 7 part 1, dishes and laundry and cooking, oh my. As usual, not enough got done, but faced with a 3-day work-week followed by a 4-day weekend, I am remaining sanguine.

Though I'd best get down to the laundry now. Take care!