P3tog broke my needles!

In my craft room I have about 1/5 of the total floor space available. This is because I hoard. 18 months ago the 4 of us where living in a flat with 1 bedroom and a kitchen/diner/sitting room. I am not complaining-we rented from a lovely family we are still very close to, who lived in the rest of the house, I am just making a comparison. Now we have a 4 bedroom 1930's(ish) ex-council terraced house, and it was full of "stuff" within 2 months....

Anyway, I have identified that my stash of yarn, fabric and magazines are all unnecessarily large, and in an attempt to cut down, I plan to knit one pattern out of each magazine I own, incorporating at least one ball of "stash". I should also be making more clothes for my family, but that is a more intense activity, and the results are more frequently turned down.

But back to the knit. After a successful dinosaur who is a fine present for any of the many young people turning 3 this year I am acquainted with, I have moved onto the more stylish Sorbet pattern from Yarn Forward magazine 17, a child's cardie with ruffled bottom edge, striping and eyelet patterning between. choosing to forgo the traditional "girly" colours, and acrylic yarn suggestion, I have gone for jewel toned 100% cotton, which I shall say now was a suggested alternative!

starting at the bottom, I cast on an unreasonable amount of stitches on rather small needles. my 3.25mm knit pro straights are needles of choice at the moment, but I have short ones, so after a bit of faff, I transferred the stitches onto a circular. at the end of the ruffle section, the pattern called for an ass-load of p3tog's to reduce at the top of the ruffle. now I have found "3togs" a strain at the best of times, but P3tog, 100% cotton yarn and tight gauge resulted in my second knit pro symphony breakage, Boo-hoo! Split along the grain, so blatantly my fault, no manufacturing problem (last time Alison at p2tog sent me a new pair really promptly, excellent service). I plan to get the Man to glue the beast back together this time, as the mend he did on the straights a child stood on was fantastic! It is a rather convenient coupling really, the knitter/spinner and the carpenter...
before/after photos of the needle to follow, when I have earned enough Man-points to broach the subject of the job...

socks and shoes-backdated!!

So, on the 17th i gave up on the xmas knitting, cos it was me birthday, yippie!
i do wonder when you grow out of a birthday being sooo exiting, but maybe that i will never grow up that much. i hope.
any-hoo, I cast on some frivalous, super-nice, just for me knitting, kai-mei by Cookie A, from her book Sock Innovation. this is going a treat, I have almost reached the toe decrease, but stumbled across two issues, both self created.
Number one- the sock foot has a lace panel that travels across the foot from one gusset to the toe on the other side. the set-up row before creating the gusset involves place 4(ish) markers in the round. i took these out when i had finished gusseting, as i thought i would go that bit faster without slipping them all every round, as the stitches told me how to proceed. problem was, when checking out how far to knit the foot, (when i had done 5") i noticed a referral to said markers, and i can't get my head around where they where. bum.
so to try and get around this, I am looking up other projects on ravelry to see how far over that pesky lace panel travels, before the toe starts.
I will smile again when I have caught up wth my ripped-knitting. unfortunatly that was about 2 days worth, and I had hoped to cast on number two on new years eve.

Number two-while looking at said project pics on ravelry, it came to my attention I still have no sock shoes! this is a dilemma I have been facing for a while, that I wear trainer-type footwear for the most, so I can cycle in them, and I have wider that femaley average feet, so low cut shoes are usually too narrow. this pattern all the detail is on the foot, so it will be hidden most of the time! I think there is an extensive (child-free) shopping trip on the horizon......