Thursday, August 21, 2008

I'm no Usain Bolt

I am one of those Ravelympic athletes whose shining moment ended after the opening ceremonies. All smiles and thrilled to be there, with no chance of making it to the medal stand.

The Argyle sock is kicking my butt.

I have spent fewer hours knitting in the past 10 days than just about any other 10 day period I can think of in the past 3 or 4 years, because unlike a normal 10-day period, I have knitting I'm "supposed" to be doing, so if I have problems with it, I can't just go do some other knitting project for fun while the problem item sits and thinks about why it misbehaved.

I work on the argyle each night, first tinking back to the mistake I ended with the night before, re-knitting, tinking back to fix an entirely new mistake, rinsing and repeating until I get fed up and the sock gets stuck on the night stand, crossing its arms and sticking out its lower lip. Or maybe that's me with the stuck out lip.

There was an issue with my gusset seam the other night. I'm using a 1/2 stitch from each selvedge to make a less bulky seam, and I came to a funky selvedge stitch that didn't look right when I inserted my tapestry needle through it, and didn't look any better after I pulled on the seaming yarn a few stitches later. I ripped back, reseamed, still no better. I deduced that I must have mounted the edge stitch incorrectly after frogging the instep diamond to correct a mistake I'd made in the color pattern. When I picked up the stitches again, I must not have mounted that edge stitch right, causing me to work in garter rather than stockinette.

I pondered whether the judges would notice and whether it would disqualify me, like the two runners who stepped on the line of the inside lane during the Mens 200m sprint. I decided they would notice, but I didn't want to risk being disqualified. So I ripped back. Then I began reknitting the instep diamond, and made a mistake in the color pattern. I tinked back to avoid an improper dismount, reknit, had the instep finish line in my sights and noticed another mistake, this time with the contrast line diamond. Tink, and tink again.

I seamed the gusset and it came out looking great. I joined the instep and gussets in the round and knitted along for several rounds, realizing I had 2 stitches too many on the instep. I designed the instep with selvedge stitches so that when I seamed the gusset, the edge stitch for the contrast line wouldn't be half-eaten by the seam, but I forgot that once I was done seaming, I'd need to get rid of that extra stitch by doing a decrease on each side.

So I have to rip back again.

It's Thursday. What do you think my chances are of finishing this sock and then knitting an entire vest by Sunday?

I didn't think so.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's ok. Don't worry. I think a lot of us thought we could finish. I am new to knitting and I signed up for a pair of socks. I am using 2.00mm DPN's and maybe because I am 50+ my right hand is hurting. So I have to take breaks and knit with larger needles of another project. This has made it impossible for me to cross the finish line. I will only have one sock done. I could say I am a one sock wearer kind of gal, but they won't buy it. LOL.
Today is the angel day of my husband so these last few weeks have been hard.
Don't beat yourself up. It's ok. It was fun to try anyway, yeah?

Anonymous said...

You need to come on over to the Slacker Olympics on Ravelry!!!!!
Woolstock

Anonymous said...

Oh, ouch. Those edge stitches can be real buggers when ripping back! Sometimes, I can tell one's not right, but can't figure how to fix it. Careful tinking is the only thing that's worked for me.

Anyway, you're still far ahead of *me* Argyle-wise! :-)
I'm thinking I'll buy some undyed sport-weight or DK and color it myself.