Gridding Knitting & Charts without Grids

Okay, so, my only class remaining is Defense Against the Dark Arts. The assignment is:

For this month’s assignment, in honor of this amazing piece of wizard engineering, which shows not merely the viewer, but their deepest desire, please make a pair of objects, that represent your deepest desire. While you’re working on them, think about what you can do to attain that desire. Include your ideas in your description when you turn them in.

Please note: a pair means two items. Two socks, two mittens, two booties all count. You don’t need to make two pair. If your item is a single item, however (a hat, a scarf, a bag, a voodoo doll), you’ll have to make two of them.

Now, this is the first project I started this month (since I knew it would take a while), so, naturally, it's the last I'm going to finish. I really got cranking on them Monday night, after turning in my History of Magic and ... um... Oh! Potions & Charms combined assignment. I had both cuffs done *before* the weekend; by Wednesday evening, I had one entire sock (which seems to want to be the left sock) finished. Knitting like a fiend (and not sleeping much) allowed me to get most of the second sock done last night. There was one little snag, though, since I'm winging the base sock pattern to my own specs.

How tall did I make the first sock??

I decided to borrow a concept from Cross Stitch, and grid my finished sock:


I then gridded what I had done of the second sock, and, asa result, was able to see exactly how many rows I had left to go on sock #2.


Here are both socks. The heel hits in the same place (yay) and the kneesock cuff hits, well, my knee - so mission accomplished. (And see how the finished sock is on the right foot here? That's how I know it wanted to be the left sock, it feels much better on the left foot!)


I should have the second sock finished, and the basic finishing done, by the end of lunch today. Then it's just the duplicate stitching - which will take a while, since I've made KNEESOCKS, not just regular socks. On size 1 needles... with turn-downable cuffs... I think they might actually qualify as kilt hose. Yikes! Anyway, I have the pattern for the ribbon, which came with the pattern for the socks (and, as it turns out, is pretty much the only reason I have the pattern since I changed everything else). The ribbon goes on one sock - it will be on my left sock, I decided (even though it's on the right sock in the Official Pattern. See? I change everything). On the back of the right sock, then, I wanted a (were)wolf track. So, had to find a good pic of a wolf track, condense it down, then figure out an easy way to grid it at teeny-tiny (like 25x30) bitmap size, and hit on color-splotchings. While the final image on the sock will be red on black, the pic below tells me what stitch I'm on when, and saved me from figuring out the pattern and converting it to another program that already had a grid in it. Plus - original Wolf Track pattern for duplicate stitch - if it works!!!

Having discovered this gridding shortcut, I expect to be using it in the future - it's just Waaaaaaaay faster than the other methods I've been using. For personal stuff like this (as opposed to patterns for publication), I'll be using it.

And, just because, our HoH posted this in the Slytherin Dungeon, to counteract some of the Unhappy in the Rock-Throwing room:

I swear, the Roomba is getting points for every kitten it ditches...! SOOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE!!!