Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Why mend dad's socks??

I put a new project in Ravelry documenting how i mended one of dad's socks. i've done that before. i have a feeling people wonder why. 

dad's socks are kind of hard to come by. It's hard to tell from photos if socks are really diabetic socks or not. I thought I could recognize the fabric with enlarged stitches in photos, but what I order isn't always exactly what is shipped. Although they are marked diabetic they don't always fit the same or have the same construction. It can be a little hard to judge scale, too. 

this is what i use to keep the hole
from getting bigger
Then there's confusion over what is meant by diabetic socks. By definition they are supposed to be very stretchy so they don't put my pressure or friction on delicate/fragile skin. Special attention is paid to not having bulky or irritating seams. People and sometimes makers and (hopefully not, but maybe even doctors!) mistakenly refer to compression socks as diabetic socks. Those might be used by diabetics suffering edema in relation to other conditions, but they are nearly opposite in function as compression socks are tight to put pressure on the foot and leg. (Usually compression socks are graduated so they are tighter at the toes than at the knee. They are rated for range of pressure they're designed to provide to prevent or reduce swelling.)

it's always a bit confusing when terms disagree.

a sigh of near defeat; facepalm

i really don't remember my blog being quite this complicated to arrange and manipulate, by which mostly i mean putting the pictures and text where i want on the page for each post. in my last post when i tried to align the photos to the left, they only nudged a bit left. thought the medium size might be part of the issue, although i've used larger photos, so i tried small with no difference. haven't yet scrutinized earlier posts to further investigate.

i also noticed that my finished objects and works in progress are not operating. i may turn off the works in progress, bc there are just SO many of them. i suppose i could switch many of them to hibernate in ravelry instead.

when i went to the we <3 progress bars group and another one or two addressing the subject for advice i learned a few things. i think the code for my progress bars is flash, not javascript. it doesn't resemble the coding suggested. i think i added the bars successfully in 2010 following notes that might have dated back to 2007 just like in the forum. when i tried viewing my blog in Chrome instead of Safari, the progress bars displayed as a slideshow. ****oh, wait a minute! maybe what i was calling progress bars is slideshow... i've forgotten so much it's so hard to tell. i seem to recall flash and Safari aren't compatible. but i think i did something to enable it somehow.

not sure how much energy i'll ever have to relearning this and learning more than i knew before. i may just have to settle for struggling to be serene about the few things i can change.

Sunday, December 17, 2017

Claudia's sunset stripes baby cardigan

This is a sweater I'm making for my massage therapist, Claudia. I'm using the Elfin Stripes (Crochet) pattern.Her baby girl is due between Christmas and New Year's Day. Colors coordinate better in person. Was going to use just rose pink and plum mist (bottom stripes), but when I weighed the rose pink I wasn’t sure I’d have enough yarn for both the sweater and hat. Also I was concerned the pairing was too somber or sophisticated for a baby.


So I looked through the other pink yarn choices I had on hand thinking I’d alternate pairs of stripes. When I couldn’t decide I set out the three remaining pinks in order from light to dark. Finally chose the plum to be the only shade for CA and used multiple shades for CB. It’s sort of like a gradient seen thru stripes or bars or a bit like stained glass with dark lead borders. Also makes me think of the way astronomers can detect elements in the atmospheres of planets by viewing the light across the visible spectrum (split up like a rainbow) and observing where the dark bands are present. By noting the color the dark band appears in they identify a gas present.

Based on Ravelry project pics of sweaters with three or more stripe colors, it seems that to visually match the stripe from chest across to the upper arm I should have started with the lightest shade (sirdar click blossom)


This pattern would have been a lot easier with a diagram of how the divided sections would fit together and how to sew the sleeves in. It doesn't give a seam allowance; it would be nice to know how much of the edges the designer had planned for seaming. I followed the advice in others notes and worked the sleeves top down starting from the arm scythes. This made me wish I'd been a little neater with my edges and carrying colors up the side since I was starting with a row of sc over the last/first stitch in each row. Seems I could have crocheted over the very last two or first two stitches with double crochet instead just to neaten up. It all makes me wish I had a baby in front of me to try it on.

This is what the inside left half looked like before seaming the shoulder from front to back and then starting the sleeve. The notch for the neckline is at upper left.
Measured how many stripes fit into 6" on the back section and used that to plan what color would be first. Trying to get the stripes to match up sort of. The shoulder/sleeve seam drops so far down the arm I didn't want to start with pink poodle adjacent to the front/back shoulder seams.

update: waiting for more of the purple (plum mist) yarn to arrive; ETA 12/27. just don't have quite enough to do the cuff, waist and neck ribbing and button bands.