Bind Off Regrets

So ... Remember my "shawl" and how I "finished" it ... well, now that it's actually a short person's twin sized blanket (and MUCH softer now that it's been washed and tossed into the dryer), it's not quite long enough for my hubby to use (yup - he stole it from me! :'( :P lol). :(  I was kinda thinking that I should've made it longer as I was binding it off (plus I had all that extra yarn) ...  but, Mr. I Want My Socks and Shouldn't You Move onto the Next Project Already? said that I should just be done with it (since I've discovered that I'm a one project at a time kinda girl. :P).

So, what now you ask?  Well, I first asked my knitting buddy, Ariana, how I could add on to a project that's already finished and she said the same thing my hubby said: Aren't you done with it already? :P  I told her of my binding off (or bound off) regrets ... :P ... So, she said that I should just unpick my end, and tink (tink = knit backwards, literally) back until I can begin again.  Or, at worse, I can add onto it but, there'd be a bump in my blanket (yes, I've given up calling it a shawl; it's officially a blanket now).  So, I happily went home and tried to find the end that I so meticulously wove in.  Unfortunately, I did such a damn good job of weaving it in that I couldn't find the end! :(  It was simply lost ... somewhere! 8S  So, I looked it up on the internet to figure out how to add onto a bind off.  Thank goodness I have some crochet skills because I needed to use my crochet hook to set up all the loops I needed to start again. :P

I finished it off the rest of my white colors, multi gray and white stripped ball, a dark grey ball and finally some of a light grey ball.  Now, it's finally long enough to use (as you can see). :P  And, yes, it's done - for real this time, I promise! ;)

Here's what the blanket (finally) looks like:

Now, you must be wondering ... Wait a minute!  What about your sock swatch that you were suppose to finish and start another one using those size 0 needles?  Not to worry.  I did finish my size 2 swatch using my Chiagoo circulars and, it looks like my gauge turned out to be: 12 stitches per 5 cm (2.5 stitches per cm) or 6 stitches per 1 inch:

And, here's my size 0 Knit Picks Karboniz DPNs sample.  It looks like my gauge turned out to be 16 stitches per 5cm (8 stitches per cm) or 8 stitches per 1 inch.

As you can see, by the time I got around to my other swatch, I was lazy and instead of making a nice border, I just used a stockinette stitch through the whole thing. :P

Now, I'm ready to start my initial test sock (just to get me going so I have a good idea of what the heck I'm doing).  It will be done in the same poly as the above swatch (since I have TONS (literally a gigantic bag) of it) so, they'll either be "in the house" socks or something as it's a bit thick for socks.  But, in the end, my lucky hubby is going to have socks made out of this: 

 

I'm even envious of his really cool looking yarn! :P We'll see how it knits!

Lastly, I found a new toy: a Lucet!  While it's not quite a knitting tool, it can be used to accessorize my knitting (and really any other craft) project.  Basically, what a Lucet is is a fork like tool that is for cord making or braiding.  Cords created with a Lucet is similar to what an i-cord looks like or something you can make with a knitting mushroom/spool (and you can make super long cords).  What's really interesting about this technique is that you can really cut the cord anywhere along the length and it won't unravel because of the way you loop the knots to make the cord.  It's pretty cool. :P  

Here's a picture of the Lucet that my hubby made for me (out of a wooden shamoji (aka rice paddle)) along with the two (2) yards of cord I made for my brother-in-law using a hand-me-down white Red Heart sport weight yarn:

 

I know the rope doesn't look like much but, man!  Two yards of rope felt like it took forever! Well, ok ... maybe it took me two weeks of randomly working at it as it can go fast if you're not planning on doing anything else but ... I don't think I'll be very inclined to offer to make my brother-in-law any length of rope he wants in the future! :P  I can see this method being very cool if you want a bracelet or maybe a necklace but not for just plain rope! :P  Here's close up view of it but, I don't think the yarn itself is very photogenic. :P