When you cannot sleep

When you cannot sleep, what do you do?  I do stuff.  I always have.  It just seems to me that if you lay in bed and worry about not sleeping, all you do is work yourself into a good sturdy case of anxiety and I get enough of that in the waking world.  I do stuff.

The other day, I woke at 2:30 a.m. and just could not fall back to sleep.  I read for a bit, but I was antsy.  I couldn't seem to sit still, so I folded my laundry.  To you causal non laundry folders, this means from last week. Hah.  I am a non laundry folder of Olympian proportions.  I had not folded or sorted my laundry since just before Christmas.  I had all the laundry baskets in my room full of un-sorted goods and I could no longer safely get to the door in the dark for my nightly trips down the hall.  So I, Queen of the laundry folding avoiders, folded my laundry. Then I tried to put away my things.  

I had to clean out my drawers. 

As previously mentioned, my sock drawer is getting pretty sparse.  All my favourites are getting holes in the heels and I am going to have to do some serious work to get back to having enough socks so I do not run out all the time.  As I was sorting socks, and pairing them up, I came across one of my favourite pairs, shown here under construction, 

with a huge hole in one heel.  

So I decided to un-pick the heel and reknit it. 

 I opted for a plane Jane afterthought heel.  I debated about re-knitting the garter stitch heel but 2:30 in the morning is no time to face the long graft you would have to do, so afterthought it was.  I cheated and did a three needle bind off.  2:30 in the morning makes it seem like the perfect decision.  I might as well try it and see of my usually sturdy feet will notice it.  

The heel of the other sock is thin but has no holes yet.  I am going to do some duplicate stitch and see if that will hold off the eventual hole.  Garter stitch duplicate isn't something I wanted to try at 2:30 in the morning either.

By this time I was totally energized.  The next one that came along I tried something a little different.

 While playing around with the Anna Zilbourg video last week, it struck me how very like a perpendicular join her technique is.  So I tried that for this sock.  I am very very pleased.  This is way more sensible than darning.  It gives you a much tidier finish and for finicky feet, you could pick up and knit right across the whole heel to put the join on the sides.

The pick up won't be felt at all and though I used a three needle type bind off at the join, a properly thinking person would graft it.

It was 2:30 in the morning and even after coffee, I never quite got past that early start time.  This one will probably be replaced with a good graft before I wear it but not right now.  

Right now, I am going to go make myself a cup of coffee, because even if it isn't 2:30 in the morning, it is time for a good cup of coffee.