It doesn’t happen very often, but once in a while I make a complete pig’s ear out of a project. The current pig’s ear are my Appunto socks.

The finished sock actually looks very pretty on and I love the yarn (Three Irish Girls), but the pattern ********!

There is actually nothing wrong with the pattern. I’m sure it’s me, but honestly I could scream.

I now know why I was sitting with only one sock made for a very long time. When I started the second sock I had a flash of that feeling that you get when you go into labour with your second baby. You multiple mothers out there know what I mean – that ‘oh no, I remember this, how can I have managed to forget it up till now?’ feeling. That brain blanking out the pain thing…

I should have given up at the point where it took me 6 starts to get the toes going. Toe up socks are very, very clever. Maybe too clever, or too clever for me at least. I read the instructions forwards backwards and inside out, but it was only on the 6th try that I realized I was doing everything inside out and that was why it all looked funny.

I’m relying on reading the charts to knit the socks, rather than the written instructions. At least the charts give me a visual idea of what’s going on…or should be. I still don’t understand though how on earth I have managed to end up with one foot half an inch longer than the other one, despite following the pattern and the cabling working out like it should. The upside of this is that one of my feet really is almost half an inch longer than the other, so that kind of saves the day. All my sock loving friends out there can now breathe out again. You won’t be getting these in your Christmas stockings!

The biggest disaster happened last night though. I was quietly watching the DVD of the BBC Pride and Prejudice series (yes THE ONE WITH COLIN AND THE WET SHIRT!!! – but I haven’t got that far yet!). Actually we were watching to see the National Trust cottage we stayed in in Lacock last month – and unfortunately in my excitement when it finally came up on the screen I managed to drop all the stitches on one side of the heel of the wretched sock.

At this point I know I should have pulled it back and re-knit it properly, wasting a whole evening of sweating blood getting as far as I’d got.

Well folks, that just wasn’t going to happen. Every girl has her limits and I have reached mine and some more where these socks are concerned. So I did what the Swiss call basteln and the rest of us know as getting somewhat creative. I sort of managed to pull it all together. It doesn’t look great, but hey, who’s going to see it and at that point I was more concerned about my blood pressure than about perfection.

So there we are. I’m slowly slogging my way up the leg, reading the chart with my glasses on the end of my nose looking like some kind of demented person. Which frankly, is what these socks have reduced me to.

But I am going to win. And it is going to be over. I just hope it’s soon.

Helen

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Knitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.