The Journey of the Sock

I think I may not be cut out to knit socks. They taunt me and make me feel like I only learned to knit five minutes ago. Sure, the trainer sock worked well a few months ago, but it’s almost like I couldn’t cope with the larger scale (and smaller needles) of the real, grown-up sock. Kate’s sock recipe is very thorough, but I guess I’d put down the socks for far too long.

There was a lot of pain. I had knit about 3/4 of the way down the cuff when I dropped a stitch. This shouldn’t be a problem except that the stitches are very small and decided they didn’t want to be picked up again. I looked at the ribbing, decided I wasn’t happy with it either, so I started over. I adjusted the cast-on stitch number so that the ribbing would work (and I knit tightly anyway, so it probably helped in the sizing) and started knitting. Again. From the very beginning. Keep in mind, this is Sock #1. There are two socks in a pair. It’s enough to de-motivate just about anyone.

I got to the point where I would be knitting the heel. I put in a life-line, in case I made a huge, glaring mistake. Well, I did. When one makes the heel of the sock, one sets up the heel rows and then turns the heel using a fairly complicated little formula. Fortunately, that formula is easy to remember. Unfortunately, yours truly got it in her head that when I was done turning the heel and was re-joining the heel with the rest of the sock, that I would only be picking up half the stitches in Kate’s recipe. Wrong. I realized this after knitting a few more rows and I think I may have shed a few tears. Frog. Frog. Frog. Lather, rinse, repeat.

At this point, I’ve rejoined the heel, I’ve decreased the gusset, and now have to knit a very simple 17cm or so before I do anything complicated again. Decreasing for the toes should be easy, but it has to be at exactly the right time, otherwise the sock won’t fit. All this time, and I still have half a sock to knit.

Then I get to knit another one, otherwise the first one was pretty pointless.

*head-bang-desk*

PS… I wonder if I’ll ever want to knit a sock again?

~ by tripknit on July 6, 2008.