I love Fridays. This one was particularly busy at work, but the sun was out, so I was trying not to complain too much. So, I cranked up the iPod and tried to stay on task. I got lots done, but by the time the day was over, I was feeling rather icky. One of the side effects of a beautiful sunny day in April is the pollen count, which is, no doubt, affecting me.
But, I had plans. My son had spent the day with my mom and step dad, and we promised my daughter an only-child night with mom and dad at Olive Garden, her favorite restaurant. This was my favorite part of the meal:
Yum! I just love this appetizer, even though I know it’s SO bad for me! Thank goodness I don’t eat there very often.
When I got home from dinner, I found this waiting for me in today’s mail:
Can you guess what it is?
Well, in case you can’t, let me tell you about it. It’s literally a double-ended latch hook, hand crafted by the folks at Knitting Today. I know about this handy little thing because I am a former user of the Bond Incredible/Ultimate Sweater Machine. It is a seed stitcher tool. I gave up on the Bond long ago, but not this little thing. I’ve almost always had one, even as a hand knitter. But the one I’ve had for a long time suddenly had gone missing. What do I use it for? Why, fixing garter stitch, of course!
Imagine dropping a stitch. With stockinette stitch, you can use a crochet hook to grab the ladders where the stitch has run down and make a chain stitch back up the line to fix it. With garter stitch, this is a little harder, because you have to feed the stitch from back to front to work up a line of garter stitch ladders. With this tool, you can pull the stitch back and forth as you go, and it makes fixing garter stitch easy-peasy!
No hand knitter who likes garter stitch should be without one of these babies. I like it so much, I got two this time, just to be sure I don’t ever truly go without. I only wish I had had it three or four weeks ago, when a series of mistakes in my current shawl project, which is all garter stitch lace, just about drove me nuts.
Now, I can rest easy. And dropped stitches? No sweat. Not anymore.
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