The Roomba Ate My Socks!

Roomba
I have a Roomba – which is a small robotic vacuum cleaner. You are supposed to be able to contain it to a single room using little devices called “lighthouses”. I really like this little guy for frequent vacuuming of my kitchen. So, the other day, I turned it on and left it to run around the kitchen while I did some things in my office.

Well, it escaped the kitchen and headed off into the living room – where my two at a time socks using magic loop project was laying beside my recliner (I’d left them there the night before) …AND…the Roomba ate my socks!

I heard this weird little sound coming from the living room and went to investigate – and there I found the Roomba thrashing about entangled in my 40” circular needle and the yarn from one of the socks. (I was so traumatized that I forgot to take a picture.)

After turning the Roomba off, it took me several minutes to remove the yarn from around the various moving parts and then deal with the fact that the circular needle had somehow ended up wrapped around one of the wheels. Eventually, I succeeded in extricating my circular needle – but it was a close call, as I had begun to consider the possibility of having to cut the cable. (WHEW!) Fortunately – one sock was still on the circular needle. The other, however, was laying in the middle of the floor – off the needle and minus its ball of yarn. I tenderly picked up this wounded creature and set it aside to recover from all the trauma.

I discovered that the lighthouse that should have prevented Roomba from going into the living room wasn’t working (dead batteries). Once I replaced the batteries, the darn little thing worked just fine and stayed in the kitchen where I wanted it to be.

Socks_BackTog
Happy News! – I was able to frog the wounded sock back to a point that I knew where I was in the pattern and then pick up the stitches and reconnect the yarn to the sock as I reknit it back to where it had been before it was attacked by the Roomba. It is now back on the same circular needle with its brother.

3 thoughts on “The Roomba Ate My Socks!”

  1. …or a lighthouse to set right next to that recliner! Oh, my goodness! I would have *cried*! I spend enough time froggin’ stuff due to my own errors! 😉

  2. Oh. MY. GOODNESS!!! I laughed and cried…it must have been quite a sight, but Oh, your poor socks!! Glad you were able to rework the wounded one. (Maybe this is why I only do 1 at a time on ML?! Nah, it’s cuz I mix up the yarn & knit them together!)

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SFS_HeelFlap2
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Then I did the heel turn – which required some juggling. I slipped one sock heel onto a another circular needle while I knit the heel turn and then repeated the process for the second sock. This seemed easier than trying to knit the two heel turns with the same circular needle at the same time.

SFS_HeelTurn3

The real challenge was to pick up the gusset stitches and at one point I had 4 circular needles in use. But I was successful in picking up the gusset stitches on both sides of the heel.

Now on to knitting the gusset and switching back to larger needles about halfway through.

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I am making progress on my first pair of “regulation socks” for Socks for Soldiers. It has been slow going. I had knitted about four inches in 2 x 2 ribbing when I decided that I had an issue with laddering. Usually when you knit on two circulars, you don’t have a problem with ladders developing between the needles – but there they were… I figured out that I was causing the problem by tugging too hard on the yarn when I knit the first two stitches on each needle. The Regia Stretch yarn is really stretchy and because I was pulling the yarn too tightly I had ladders. So, I made a trip to the frog pond and frogged the socks all the way back to the beginning. (Sigh…)

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9 inches of sock leg.


Well, I now have 9+ inches of leg done on both socks. The first 8 inches were knit on size US 2 (3.00 mm) circulars, with a stitch gauge of 8 spi. Following the directions of the official pattern, I switched to Size US 1 (2.25 mm) circulars, which have a gauge of 9 spi. The leg continues in ribbing until it measures 12 inches and then you begin the heel. I’ll post an update when I get to the heel.

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So here is my “10 in 2010” project list:

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  7. Teddy Bear (from Debbie Bliss Toy Knits) – using Peaches & Cream yarn
  8. Socks using Brown Sheep Wildfoote yarn
  9. Socks using Debbie Norville Serenity Yarn
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This is an easy way to set some goals for knitting projects. If you are on Ravelry and are interested in joining, go to Groups and look for “10 in 2010”. Happy Knitting.