Updates, get your Updates!

Update on the tail of the bad dog: Muffy has just gone home. No more mobile trip hazard. Of course I swore Muffy to silence about the incident at the emergency vet's -- if he knows what's good for him.

Update on faux Jaywalker socks: I gave these to DD, they were slightly too big for me. At this point, I am not enamored of stitching on the bias -- it lacks elasticity.

[ETA -- a big shout-out to Julia in St. Paul, MN, for your comment on my last post -- you made my day!]

Other random updates:

After a huge crash, my work-issued laptop and our work server are working again, pretty much. I'm no longer supposed to use my work email address for non-work email, or to store personal documents on the laptop (at least if I expect them to be backed up for me). Has anyone used Google Docs & Spreadsheets?? Any feedback would be most welcome.

I attempted the Mermaid socks I have seen various places in blogland, notably here. I did this while waiting to receive Lucy Neatby's book Cool Socks, Warm Feet in which the pattern is found. My copy came from here, because my LYS didn't have it in stock. This seems to be another highly acclaimed knitting book that doesn't mention negative ease, which I personally find critical to making a well-fitting sock. I have yet to find a sock book that does discuss this.

Being impatient, while waiting for the book I started a cuff based loosely on Grumperina's famous Odessa pattern. I thought it was too tight.

I received my book and began a "true" Mermaid sock, which has a different combination of increases and decreases to make it swirl. I thought it was too loose. The gauge directions are unlike any I have seen before -- you swatch with "the smallest needle size you are comfortable with", and then go up "a size or two" when starting the sock. Huh??! I have to say I was not completely surprised not to get a good fit this way, and yet this pattern is so highly acclaimed that I trusted and tried it anyway.

At this point I have gone back to my original "Odessa" type sock, ripped back to the ribbing to correct a mistake early on, and am trying again. I think I was overly pessimistic about it being too tight. We'll see. Both of these stitch patterns are pretty elastic despite the stitching on the bias -- they act a bit like ribbed fabric. I think either of these stitch patterns would be attractive for my self-striping sock yarn, which I am trying to use up. If I can solve the gauge issues.

Knitting progress will be a bit slow for a while around here -- not having my working laptop for most of January meant using DH's computer for work (I'm a telecommuter), and apparently I can no longer work with a regular mouse with my right hand for any length of time without my tendinitis flaring up. My normal set-up has a touchpad that I use on the left, and I have no tendinitis problem that way. Had I anticipate this I would have gone to greater lengths to get the right ergo setup during January, of course, but I didn't and now I am paying the price.