Not-so-Pretty Petals

or
Mystery Solved
or
Kill Me Now

I brought the short-of-Koigu socks up from the laundry room yesterday to show to a friend who was over receiving sock knitting advice. After she left, I placed one sock on top of the other found myself puzzled, because they didn't appear to be the same size. How could that be? After I knit the 6 pattern repeats on the leg, I counted the number of rows on the first sock's heel flap 158 times to make sure the second one would be exactly the same length. I counted every row of the first sole to make sure I knit exactly the same number for the second.

Then I lined them up on the counter heel-to-heel, instead of cuff-to-cuff.


The pattern says to work six repeats on the leg, or however many desired. Apparently, I desired five repeats in August, which accounts for why I had some yarn leftover on that sock but not the second sock. Of course, while I was counting heel stitches and rows of knitting on the foot, I could have counted the number of lace repeats on the frigging sock leg.

Note to self: tell Cynthia she may want to search for sock advice elsewhere.

The genius women at knitting group today listened to my tale of woe, and then one of them (Connie? Beth?) suggested cutting the leg right above the heel flap of the longer one and ripping out the extra pattern repeat and then Kitchenering it back together. There are four rows of stockinette between the end of the lace and beginning of the heel flap, so it'll be reasonably easy to graft.

Thank goodness for that period of mourning I must go through after I discover a soul-crushing knitting error. Can you imagine how upset I'd be if I had ripped out the whole foot before someone suggested grafting?

In other news...
I have 9 days to finish 2 halves of 2 thrummed mittens, plus the extra thrummed mitten for Tina. Because I have a deadline, I am actively avoiding it by designing kitschy flamingo socks, involving eyelash yarn and beads for embellishment. More on that another day.