PJ Trader

I never quite understood the fascination with knitting a pair of socks.  Why spend $25 for fancy sock yarn, cast onto those wicked looking double pointed needles, and spend hours of your personal time making something that will be hidden under pant legs and stuffed inside smelly shoes?

 I tried making one once – it wasn’t that hard (with size 8 needles and worsted).  But it still didn’t interest me as a fun thing to do.  Although my knitting partners-in-crime have noted that I like sock yarn because it’s fun.

Recently my last pair of colored socks went through their final wash cycle.  I knew they were on their last legs, those lucky blue socks I wore to every hockey game.  But they couldn’t be mended any more, the holes were the size of my fist.

And that’s when I found out its not easy finding colored women’s socks.  Trouser socks, for dress pants, yes.  But not crew socks in a pretty assortment of colors.  So I guess if I want socks to wear with my jeans, I have to make some.  My friend, Claire Delacroix/Deborah Cooke, is starting up a Knit-A-Long in April, and we’re doing socks all year.  She’s dragging me down the path of destruction.

But I know me very well, having lived with myself for over 40 years.  I would have second sock syndrome – finishing one sock but not the other.  Unlike Claire/Deborah, I love the beauty of row after row of stockinette stitch, but not having to do the same thing twice.  And I know I’d never get them the same size.

So when I investigated sock making, I decided that I’d have to do it the hard way – knitting both socks at the same time on two circular needles.  I bought a book to show me how to do it – called “Knitting Circles Around Socks” by Antje Gillingham.  Good pictures and helped me understand the cast-on (with a little help from YouTube). 

So I jumped the gun a bit on the KAL, and I have the cuffs and a few rows of the leg started.  I have to say, if I’m going to knit socks, two at a time is the way to go.  (Of course, I say this before I hit the heel gusset…)

What about you – would you knit socks or just buy them? (Or pay someone else to make them for you?)

I had to have a talk with my daffodils the other day.  I noticed, as usual, that all the other daffodils in the neighborhood were out, swaying in the spring breezes and bringing joy and contentment to their families.

Mine were doing their usual thing: stubbornly hiding and resisting doing their work.  I sort of understand why.  No one wants to open up to chilly temperatures and with the time change and all – well, it’s DARK in the morning.

But enough is enough and I had a stern talk with those pesky critters.  I said that it’s nice of them to want to be the last ones on the block to bloom and all, but it made us look pretty lazy.  And frankly, I don’t need their help for that.  The overgrown lilacs and that stupid bush I don’t know the name of climbing the garage walls areoing a mighty find job of telling the neighbors what a lazy gardener I am, thankyouverymuch.

I didn’t think they listened to my speech, as they didn’t even nod in agreement or anything.  But those commercials about how you have to talk about drugs and sex with your kids, even if you don’t think they’re hearing you, must really work.

Two of the daffodils blossomed today.

Enjoy your spring flowers – whatever their mood!

Dear Mr. Dyson,

My husband and I own the purple pet version of your Dyson vacuum and it surely is the very best one we’ve ever owned. I admit that my husband does most of the vacuuming in our house, but recently I had the opportunity to put the product to extensive use and have a few design recommendations for you.

First of all, I noticed some sort of problem when my dog tore open a lapdesk this afternoon when no one was home. This was one of those things that has a cushy pad on it to sit in your lap. Did you know those things are filled with millions of those tiny little Styrofoam beads? Maybe even gazillions of them? My floors were covered 2 inches deep in those things and it looked as if it had snowed in my living room. Anyway, after I swept up as much as I could with a broom and dustpan, I found that using the vacuum in its normal mode failed to pick up those static-y, pesky little balls of foam. I’m not sure why, but all it seemed to do was move them around some more.

Thankfully, pulling the wand out worked better, but as you might imagine, vacuuming 4 inches at a time with the duster attachment was agony. I’m of average height, 5′5″ tall, and there wasn’t quite enough reach for me, so after a full hour of vacuuming nearly 800 square feet of floors, my back was pretty sore. I was thinking that maybe you could make that wand just a smidgen longer, so that we don’t have to bend over so far when using it. Alternatively, putting some sort of rolling seat attachment on the vacuum would work, so we could just sit down and vacuum. (I think it would be easier just to add two or three inches to the wand, though.)

Your canister remains among the best in design – since I had to empty it five times – and the process to do so was very painless. Maybe, just maybe, you could find a way to squeeze a little more volume in there, just to cut down on the number of trips to the garbage can? You wouldn’t believe how much space those little balls take up! And, of course, they cling to your shoes, so tracking the dirt to the garbage meant having to re-vacuum the area several times.

While I’m quite sure my husband will crate the dog in the future to prevent such things from happening again, I did want to pass these observations along to your design team since often the best ideas are generated from real users in the real world.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit these suggestions. I hope I never have the opportunity to have to write you again.

Sincerely,

PJ Trader