Last night I rolled up a hank of Gloss into a ball. Of course, partway through, I left the room for a while, and trusted the cats. Yes, I did just admit that I am a little low on intelligence at times. I think whoever it was that decided to play with it pulled the unwound hank off the table, played with that a bit, and then that pulled the almost finished ball down on top of her head. At least, I hope that’s what happened. The ball was mostly okay, but the hank was tangled. At least she (or they) didn’t manage to chew it to pieces.

After I got it all rolled up again, I broke out the DPNs and cast on for the second Travelling Stitch Legwarmer. I’m going to try to use the DPNs for the whole thing this time. I’m doing a backwards wrap to try to eliminate the ladders. However, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be doing that to the last stitch on the needle, or the first. Right now I’m trying it on the first. Of course, I don’t have much trouble with ladders in ribbing, so I’ll have to get past that before I know if it’s working.*

Another thing I’m doing differently with this one is not using markers. I think a large part of the problem I was having with the left edge of the cable patterns was because I was working around a marker (a regular safety pin, I know, the shame). I don’t think the markers are really necessary, anyway.

I’m not going to worry about the length. The gauge given in the pattern says 37 rounds = 4″. So for 143 rounds, you’d have about 15.5″. That’s a lot closer to what I have in the first legwarmer than what it says in the pattern.

Anyway, the plan is that I work on the second legwarmer and see if I can fix the problems I had with the first. If I do, then I can decide whether to finish the first one as it is, lumps and all, or rip it out and knit it again like the second.

As of right now, I have about four rows of ribbing done, so it’s way too soon to say.

*ETA: ClumsyKnitter on Ravelry put in her notes that she wrapped backwards at the end of rows. I will start doing that now.

I’m almost finished with Thing Two’s socks. I didn’t have any problems with picking up the stitches along the heelflap this time. I’m glad I figured that out.

I can’t really start on my legwarmers yet. I have to make socks for Thing One, and then probably for Little Cat Z, too.

The yarn for Thing One’s socks is, I think, Plymouth Encore, but I’m not certain. I took a bunch of yarn from my mom’s stash, intending to teach Thing One how to crochet granny squares. She’s never seemed interested in doing more than chain stitch, so we haven’t done that yet. One or more of the cats found the yarn, however, and turned several of the skeins into kitty toys, AKA complete messes. It took me over half an hour to wind the yarn for Thing One’s socks into a workable ball. It was so bad, I couldn’t even tell what the original shape of the skein had been, and I have no idea what happened to the ball band. I’m pretty sure I know which cat was the main culprit, at least. Miss Orchid is the one I’ve found carrying the GCUC around — all two pounds of it. I’m not saying the other two didn’t join in the fun, but she’s the one who seems to like playing with full skeins the most.