The Trials of the Sock

The trials of the sock are many.  No two pairs come with the same challenges.  As such, they each come with very different rewards.  With luck, they all end with a pair of hand-knit socks.

They never look much like they'll hold a life lesson, the charming pair in the photo.  Many are so simple you swear you can knit them in no time.  "I could have those socks done in a week!" you tell yourself enthusiastically, "Maybe less if I'm inspired."  You should know better.  They're never done in a week.  First it's that wonky bit in the instructions that makes no sense.  Then you're interrupted by something you need to take care of right away.  After everything else has sorted through, you've got your first sock!  That's half way there!  The second should work up much quicker, or so you think.  There's plenty of time left in the week, so there's no hurry.  You'll be wearing those socks before you know it.  This, of course, is where your problems really begin.

Having plenty of time to make the second, you look back at all the other projects you've been neglecting.  It's not the long term projects that worry you.  You'll have plenty of time to finish those.  You've been working on them steadily for a while now and that's unlikely to change.  No, it's the ones with the deadlines that creep in.  There's the sweater for the baby that's impossibly due next week or the legwarmers you swore would be done before the weather turned and there's already a nippiness to the air.  Let's not forget that scarf promised for a friend's birthday that's creeping up and you're not even half done!  It's time to get cracking on those things!  That other sock can wait.  There's no rush.  Besides, it will go together so much faster than the first.  There will still be plenty of time before you really need to pick it up again.  It's not like you've got a shortage of socks and these other projects need to get off your needles.  You can always use the sock as a travel project.

Then again, maybe you're not like I am.  Maybe you're faithful to one project.  Maybe you limit yourself to so many projects at once.  Who knows, maybe you do have a sock shortage that needs to be addressed!

It doesn't really matter when or how you get to the other sock, because most people eventually will.  I say most because I've heard rumors of people who have a whole stack of single socks, waiting desperately for mates, which to me is very sad.

However, the second sock never seems to go together as quick as the first, at least not when I'm doing them.  The pattern has become dull and routine.  It's no longer challenging, so I put it down often, inspired by some other new and shiny project.

I'm horrible with that.  If it gets to hard, I simply put it down and walk away.  There's only so many challenges I can face before I'm tempted to go homicidal and kill the pattern with knitting needles, which are ever so handy.  That means I always have another project waiting in the wings for just such an occasion.  I thought (silly me) that this would be my socks.  However, this was not to be the case.  Socks can be tricky and more challenging than they look.  This is the source of my current opinion on socks.

I looked at the pattern or the perfect socks.  I somehow knew they had to be mine.  "Alice's Illusion Socks" they were called, written by Alice Bell.  The disappearing image of the Cheshire Cat called to me.  It was only in part due to my lifelong obsession with Alice in Wonderland.  It was also illusion knitting, something I found quite simple, yet my friends were always impressed.  Now all I had to do was find the perfect yarn.

While visiting Mind's Eye Yarn in Porter Square, Cambridge, I found the yarn that answered my call.  It wasn't too expensive.  Then again, I did end up spending twenty seven dollars for enough to make two socks.  I went away from the brown and creme of the original, opting for a gray and creme, after all, anyone who knows anything about Alice in Wonderland knows the Cheshire Cat is merely the little gray tabby kitten Alice had lost.

In my excitement, I cast on right away, only to be frustrated by the suggested cast-on method.  The figure eight cast on may come out looking like a finely grafted toe, but it took me three tries to get it right.  I decided then and there that toe up socks were the bane of my existance.

Somewhere in all this, the girl that worked at the shop showed me how she cast on for toe up socks .  It was genius!  It was beautiful.  Hold the needles just so, alternate between them for a long-tail cast on.  Then start your round with the needle closest to you.  That was so much easier than trying to figure out the figure eight cast on.  It used the cast on method I always used.  She made it look so simple.  She even showed me the toe of her own beautiful hand-knit socks in lovely shades of blue to prove it.  It looked just like a grafted toe!  Lovely!

Excitedly, I cast on again, this time using her method.  It didn't look right.  I ripped it out and tried again.  A few rounds in and it still didn't look right.  I tried and tried, but no matter what I did, it looked nothing like a grafted toe.  I was tempted several times to admit defeat and ask for help, but the yarn store worker was busy and I couldn't bring myself to interrupt.  I may have three years of casual knitting under my belt, and self-taught at that, but I didn't want to seem inexperienced in front of another knitter.  I didn't like help and I goth the feeling this girl already didn't like me.  I also didn't have money to pay for a lesson if I started to take up too much of her time needing help.  Instead I fumbled through a few more times, determined to figure it out for myself through some act of stubbornness.

I ended up resorting to the figure eight cast on, which after my frustration with the long-tail method, turned out to be quite easy.  The first row offered a few challenges, what with the increases and all, but I managed.  It wasn't a flawless cast on, but I had stitches on my needles.  I was ready to settle with that.

My previous experiences with my constant restarts revealed another problem to me.  Something about the way I knit meant there were funny spots on either side of the toe where the increases were.  I couldn't quite place why it bothered me, but it did.  I couldn't just leave it that way!   If I wanted socks with holes, I would have gone with some lace pattern for the to as it would at least look pretty.  (I wonder if there are people who do that.  I'm sure there must be.)  So with slight alteration, I was off.  There was a stitch thrown in between the increases and it looked flawless, or as flawless as a toe that looked like a flattened triangle could look.

With that, I was off!  The pattern was inching up the instep of the sock.  The figure of a cat was slowly emerging.  I was well on my way to victory.  The same day I cast on I was to the heel turn.  Now all I had to do was figure out that silly wrap and turn thing for a short row heel.

That's when I noticed the problem I simply couldn't live with.  The cat was too far over on the sock.  You almost couldn't see him as he was falling off the side of my foot while the tail snaked up the center.  This should have been a clue that something more was wring, but I ignored it.  I frogged the sock away, and recalculated so the cat would fall on the toe where it should.  Then I restarted, blissfully ignorant of a problem I would later see.

So off I went, knitting like a mad woman.  The figure of the cat was just where I wanted him.  There was a bit of oddness to his lengthiness, but I was certain it would work itself out as the fabric stretched to embrace my foot.  I turned the short row heel with only a slight problem that resulted in redoing the last row  almost as soon as I finished.  It was all going so well.  I had almost finished the long stretch of tail when I noticed it.  After the heel I was supposed to continue the gartered stripe on the back of the legg.  Of course, I hadn't noticed this before.

Feeling disheartened, but not yet defeated, I ripped back to the first incorrect row.  I put my stitches pain stakingly back on my needles.  Rather proud of myself for managing it, I moved on.

All of a few rows later I noticed something.  The cat was the right way.  The pattern looked correct.  The seam, however, was on the wrong side, or the cat's tail was on the wrong side.  I guess it really didn't matter which.  I was effectively knitting the right sock with the left oriented cat.  While the perfectionist side of me wanted to rip it back and start all over again, I decided I could be reasonable.  Logically it would make no difference if the cat were oriented the wrong way.  I'd probably just end  up putting them on the wrong feet anyway, so what did it matter?  I opted to soldier on.

I was flying through the sock.  At this rate it would be done before I even hit the plane home.  I was certain if I were truly ambitious, I could have the socks done before I got home.  That would be a lot of time to sit and knit.  My goal would be met and my socks would be finished before I got home.  I was so excited that I grabbed my knitting and began to work.  I had just made it to the curl of the tail.  I was in the home tretch!  A few more rows and I would be on to the ribbing!

Of course, as all things go, it could not be that simple.  The count was off.  It wasn't disastrously off.  It was missing one stitch.  If I could just figure out where it went I would be fine.  I've been known to drop a stitch now and again and have become quite accustomed to picking them up again.  I would simply find the missing stitch and fix it.  The problem would be solved and little harm would be done to my already frayed sanity.  I began my search, a long and drawn out analysis of all the hard work I had done.  Row after row I checked.  "Surely it must have been where I ripped back," I thought as I searched half way down the leg with not so much as a rogue decrease.

When I got to the heel, I still couldn't find the stitch.  This was not good.  I couldn't just leave it that way.  I could have dropped a stitch somewhere and it would simply unravel all the way down to the foot!  I couldn't have that.  There was only one solution.  I had to rip back to a point I knew I was right.  Then I'd be sure.

With all the other problems I had with this sock, there was only one option, rip back and fix them all.  At least then I would know it was right.  There was no other way.  It had to be done for sanity's sake.  I doubted anyone else would see it the same, but I figured I might as well do it right if I was going to spend all that time and effort.  This is supposed to be a learning experience, right?

So I ripped back to the toe.  I'm going to have to do all of it over again.  This time, the cat will be right.  This time, I'll be sure to keep the garter pattern in the round through the leg.  I'm going to do it the right way, at least, until something else goes wrong.

This whole thing has taught me so much, both as a knitter and as a person.  I've always known I'm a perfectionist.  I've always known I was a little paranoid about the possibilities when things go wrong.  However, I'd also thought of myself as a quitter.  Even so, I've stuck with this project.  I haven't quit yet.  I have a feeling I'm going to have some serious problems with starting the second sock.  My urge would be to take a break.  Who could blame me?  It's been quite the process and I'm not even done with the first.  I also need a certain level of sanity to knit by.  When things get out of control, I can't manage the process and get out of sorts when things go wrong.  When there's some sense of sanity, however, I don't mind the problems.  I deal with each when they need it and move on.  I'm not a very patient person, so sometimes the very process drives me to the brink of madness.  I tend to know when walking away is my best option and when it will lead to another item I'm just never going to finish.  It means learning a sense of realism about myself that helps make those important decisions.

Before I started this, I was sitting on the couch, covered in crimply, curly, crinkly frogged yarn with one sock off and my hair in a mess.  I must have looked a wreck.  I certainly felt like a mess.  However, it felt great.  There's something satisfied about being covered in yarn I just ripped out like a mad woman.  It's not so much the destructive high from destroying something I worked so hard to create.  Its strangely refreshing to know I can start over, take out all the bad and begin  anew.  You can't do that in life.  It's not a reality.  With knitting, however, you don't have to live with your mistakes.  It's a beautiful thing for a woman dealing with all the rough spots in her life from where she strayed so far from the pattern.  It's nice to be able to start some things over when everything else must go on.

Already socks have taught me something.  Who knew something for my feet could teach me so much about myself.  It's such an insignificant thing, a pair of socks, yet for me, they mean so much.