sock and Tubey updates

After quite a few false starts, I've finally got the toe done on my Sherman sock. (The pattern is probably in a few different places, but the place I found it is in a Yahoo group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Socknitters/message/59091

I found that I had to place a short strand of yarn at the end of each row as I made it in order to figure out where to end the next row that direction. It took my full concentration. Plus, I started by using a crochet provisional cast on and then found that the loops were hard to find after removing the crochet yarn. So, I restarted with a single cast on. Then after getting a few rows past the toe, I decided that it was going to be too wide. So, I frogged again and cast on 22 instead of 26 stitches. Finally, I decided to do a Crusoe pattern after that. (I love a good pun. A stranded sock called Crusoe is in that category.) Unfortunately, the sock looked better on the plain side than the stranded side. (It's Moda Dea Sassy Stripes yarn -- which I thought I'd try even though I do like the Magic Stripes yarn I used for my two previous socks.) The yarn has a nice pattern to it. Maybe I'll try the Crusoe sock in unstriped yarn.
More in the "I like to FROG" vein: I've frogged my Tubey sweater quite a few times as well. The first time I frogged, I frogged to the top of the first sleeve so that I could make the sleeve fitted to the elbow. Then after finishing the shrug part and getting about 20 rows down on the tube part, I decided I didn't like the neck. It turned under; it felt tight at the back of my neck; and there was so much knitting that was hidden. So I frogged the tube, one sleeve, and most of the back -- and then made the neck squarer with garter stitch around the sides and back of the neck. The neck is a lot wider now even though I made it so I would cast on fewer stitches for the tube in front.