Non-extinct yarn musings

Been knitting, of course, lots and lots of knitting, mostly baby stuff for my twin-laden friend. I have discovered I adore using sock yarn, but I am sooo not a sock knitter. Knitting socks is...well, at the end, I've got something to wear on my feet and frankly I'm really hard on my clothes and especially on socks, tending to shove them into boots and shoes with less delicacy than perhaps some people. My nice thick warm angora-wool blend socks from the Gap collect pills like mad. Lesser socks simply go holey. And as I really prefer very lightweight socks and stockings anyway -- the days New York goes utterly sub-arctic these days can be counted on the fingers and toes of one side -- and the socks are utterly hidden by my pants legs and shoes or boots, well what's the point in knitting them?? I know lots of people walk around their house in socking feet, but with cat fur and litter a constant threat I prefer slippers. So lovely handmade socks are not for me. Besides, I really hate knitting in the round at the diameter of a sock. The needles get in each others way. The yarn gets tangled. The circular needles method is too complicated for my poor aged brain. So no. It's cheaper and easier just to buy stuff!

Sudden flashes of absolute genius

I'm sure I'll later go looking and find this advice on a dozen other knit blogs and forums, but here goes. When knitting the two fronts of a cardigan at the same time -- because not doing that is just plain lame -- and knitting the button-band and buttonholes into the front edges, do yourself a huge favor and knit a "reminder" stitch into the band where the button will be attached.

This occurred to me the old-fashioned way, i.e., I made a mistake. I knitted a buttonhole on both bands of my current project, and didn't realize it until many rows later. I decided it wasn't worth doing a tedious undo-three-stitches-crochet-upwards-after fixing thing, since I would be able to just sew the button right over the hole -- BING! In the case of this project, a lacy scrap of stuff made slinky and exciting with Classic Elite Cotton BamBoo, the button band is 5-stitch wide garter and I am now using a single centered purl stitch on the same row as the buttonhole. I will do this for the rest of my knitting life. It is SO much easier than tying in a yarn marker.

(I think I recall reading someone's clever advice -- probably Elizabeth Zimmerman's -- that when knitting a baby sweater in advance of the happy event, you should knit buttonholes on both bands and then sew the buttons over the appropriate side once the gender is known. Frankly I've lost track of what's male/female sided any more. I have jeans that zip one way and shorts that zip another. I've never been too good with gender-assigned clothing convention, other than Real Men Don't Wear Lace.)