The Stephanie Socks

I'm a fairly accomplished knitter.  Some might say I'm an expert knitter.  I've yet to find a pattern that completely defeats me.  I do not often have knitting attacks, where things go hopelessly wrong through no fault of my own (it's the yarn's fault, you know it is).  So, it came as something of a surprise to find that the sock I was knitting was not knitting as a sock should.

Sock #1 looks beautiful, no?

I was knitting the Route 66 design by Stephanie van der Linden, a very nice geometric design, inspired by American quilt blocks.  The first sock went swimmingly.  The colors were working, the pattern was knitting up quickly.  I even learned how to knit Continental so that I could have one color in each hand.

So, first sock down.  The hardest part is starting the second, right?  Second Sock Syndrome can be a very serious thing.  Nope, no problem there.  Started the second right away, it was going swimmingly, too.  Except I kept knitting the colors in the wrong order which made for quite a bit of tinking.  And, then I got to the heel flap.

I read the directions, I shifted stitches from needle to needle and started knitting the flap.  About ten rows in (about half the flap), I realized the pattern wasn't quite lining up.  I knit a couple more rows thinking, "I can live with that."

No, I couldn't live with that.  The flap got frogged, the directions got reread, I shifted a few more stitches from needle to needle and started knitting again.  I got all the way to the end of the flap that time and started turning the heel only to discover there weren't enough stitches in the heel flap.  I was supposed to have 36 stitches and instead I had 32.  I counted and recounted feverishly.  I scanned the heel flap for dropped stitches even though 4 seemed like an unlikely amount of dropped stitches (if I had dropped those stitches, I would have thought that I would have noticed them earlier; that's almost half an inch of stitches).  No such luck.  The flap got frogged... again.

Reread the directions, decided they weren't helping me this time and shifted some more stitches so that I was at least starting with the right number of stitches.  I felt like I was back in control.  The pattern was lining up, the heel was turned, I started liking the socks again.  As a reward for good behavior, I took the socks with me to Powells to meet the Yarn Harlot, who was in Portland promoting her latest book.

Can I just say, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka the Yarn Harlot is hilarious? And awesome?  If you're a knitter, you probably already knew that but it bears repeating.  She is awesome.  Portland was her last stop on her 10-day book tour and I know she was exhausted.  You could hear it in her voice.  Even so, she was wonderfully witty and gracious with everyone who stood in line to get their books signed.  She even willing posed for a picture with me and my socks.  These socks so owe me for that.

And, the socks finally got a name out of it.  Because they were designed by a Stephanie and photographed with a Stephanie, I'm calling them my Stephanie Socks.

So all was right in my knitting world, I met the Yarn Harlot, the socks were swimming again.  What could possibly go wrong?



So close and yet so far...



I ran out of yarn.  (whimper)

And my LYS is out of it and not expecting anymore until December.  (sniff)

After my trip to London, for which I was knitting these socks.  (grumble)

Did I just see a error in the cuff?  (sigh)

(bigger sigh)


Put the sock down and step away from the knitting.