Loose ends

Knitted Newborn Hat

Yarn: Dark Horse Yarns Fantasy (50% nylon; 50% acrylic; worsted weight)
Colorways: 31 (Baby Pink) and 33 (Dark Rose)
Needles: US 8 circulars
Stitches: 54

Tonight I wanted to tie up some loose ends. I've needed to fulfill my end of the Pay It Forward exchange with one person. Since she had a baby a week ago (and thus should have better things to do than reading my blog), this seemed like the perfect thing to make. I'm not completely satisfied with what I've done. There is a fairly bad and loose ladder at one of the decreases that I tried to cover up when weaving in the end. Oddly, the place where I've usually had a noticeable ladder on hats--the place where the hat is joined in the round--is better than usual.

A baby hat is not what I originally intended to do, but I've been thwarted a bit on that project. I started it months ago but kept getting tripped up and ripped it out a couple times. I considered using that yarn for this baby hat, but I couldn't find the label and am not sure what the yarn is. I'm guessing I'll have to go back to where I purchased it last winter to identify it. I unearthed many labels, plenty I probably no longer need, but the one I needed to find eluded me.

While I'm botching things up, I pulled the Knit Picks Option cable out of the join when removing this WIP from the needles. Good work! Gorilla Glue will fix it but still...

Of course, the one thing I'm trying to fix, the finished sock in need of frogging, won't cooperate. I was ready to rip it out last night, but I couldn't find the end woven into the toe. It figures that I can't see the end the one time I need for it to poke out and wave at me. After messing around pulling some stitches loose, I pulled out the scissors and cut a strand in half thinking that I could freely unravel the sock. Hardly.

I've been pulling and undoing stitches one by one, but the whole thing isn't coming apart. On the one hand it's good to know that my handiwork won't fall to pieces, but in this case that's what I want it to do. Any tips for how to rip out a completed sock?