When you study the ancient world, you study the concepts of curses.  When you watch every minute of extra material on Rome DVDs, you think about them even more.  And then, if you mix in some really good adolescent lit about a fantastical array of universes with lots of magic in them, and you maybe have a few cocktails now and again, and you have some trouble with knitting, well, you can see where logic might get twisted.

I ran into trouble with some socks.  That’s a big deal for me, because I’m a touch obsessed with socks. I learned to knit specifically so I could knit socks.  I have trouble accepting the fact that my darling husband doesn’t particularly want socks, and my wonderful Mom, who loves hand-knit socks very dearly, reacts badly to most wools and thus needs me to make her socks out of yarns I’m not always very fond of.  I think about socks a lot, and I want socks-in-process to behave themselves.  And they did, until they didn’t.

First, some experimental socks knit out of Wildfoote in the colorway Bluegrass.  Ruadhan wasn’t wild about the yarn, so she gave it to me.  I wasn’t in love with it, so I figured I’d half-ass my way through a really plain pair of longer than usual socks with some calf shaping and see how it went.  That was a year and a half ago.  The problem was casting on the second sock.  I couldn’t make it match the first–the same number of stitches on the same needles in the same yarn and the same ribbing pattern didn’t match–the second sock was much bigger.  Frog, start over, cuss; frog, start over, cuss; frog, start over, cuss; frog, start over, cuss . . . You get the point.  So I set them aside.

Then came the kilt hose.  I like the first one a lot.  I started on the second, things seemed odd, I ignored it.  And then I noticed it was much bigger.  Sigh.  But knitting these has always seemed like a slow project, because of the vast number of stitches  and the general  slogginess of such plain ribbing.

Then came the third problem.  I wanted to make some lovely socks, I thought the original swatch was too drapey to wear very long.  I fudged some math and got started, thinking I’d make a pair of socks either for my Mom or for Ruadhan, both of whom have small feet.  Well, I went too far with the downsizing–these puppies don’t fit the smallest adult feet around.

So I cast around for some options.  Friends suggested corn dollies, fire, denial, tested patterns, actual real math, etc.  I decided on a combination of drudgery, yarn sacrifice, and lovely distractions.

Exhibit one:

Drudgery.  Finished, fraternal twin Bluegrass socks.  The one on top is smaller, and obviously different in the color-patterning.  It’s fine.  They’re wearable.  And not on fire.  Socks are significantly less wearable when they’re on fire, from what I’ve heard.

Exhibit two:

Sacrifice.  These puppies are done with.  Socks too small for Ruadhan are just too small to bother finishing, because kids’ feet are differently proportioned than adult feet, and I’m no masochist.

The kilt hose?  Well, I haven’t worked up the gumption to frog yet–that would be a lot of knitting wasted. So that’s where the distractions come in.  I’m drowning my sorrows in a good project that hasn’t betrayed me and a lovely gift from a friend.

The good project: The sockyarn blanket, of course.

I know it doesn’t look very different, but that’s because I put the leaf in the table.  I’ve added a few more rows of blocks to it, just because I can.  And because most people are taller than I am, and I want my visitors to be cozy too.  We will not, however, be discussing the edging until I’m in a safer place, knitting wise.   ‘Nuff said.

And the gift?  Brogan sent me two whopping warrior CDs of Momus and the Fomorians as a lovely surprise.  An embarrassment of riches, that is.   If nothing else, I can listen to Dig It while burying tricksie knitting in the back yard.  That’ll learn it.

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