A Tale of Three Socks...or The Third Time is Not Charming!

It is so painful to write this post. My readers (all 2 or 3 of you! LOL) may have wondered where I have been lately. Well, I have to tell you I have been knitting socks for my Feet To Prayers Exchange (see next post for explanation). I deliberated over the yarn, wanting it to be perfect and found this lovely Schaefer Anne when we went up to Placerville. It's such a nice yarn and comes about 500 yards, so I thought it would be perfect for the Jaywalker pattern which sucks up a lot of yarn in the pattern. The yarn looks dull and lifeless in these photos, but it is a beautiful yarn with two shades of green a bright burgandy and a little deepnavy/dark purple. When I saw it in the skein at the store, I gasped and new it was perfect!

So attempt number one, in the first photo below (or above if Blogger persists in placing things out of order!)...well, Jaywalker was too small. It wasn't overly surprising as I used size 0 needles wanting to have a somewhat firm fabric for my swap partner who lives in the cold midwest. (The lovely Charlotte is sadly blogless!) Undaunted I frogged about 4" of knitting! Next I found the instructions to knit Jaywalker in a larger size. Wow! Great! I knit away (seek second photo) and got beyond the heel and gusset and was heading for the home stretch and realized that this sock was just too huge, especially since the bottom of the sock is knit in stockinette so does not soak up the yarn like the top which continues in pattern. The photos don't do it justice. It looked so lovely and the striping was going beautifully. I took pictures like any good knit blogger would do and proceeded to visit the frog pond once again! I mourned for two days. I could not face it. I had been beaten down by this pair of lovely socks! So for the next day and a half I knit Fetching which will be a Christmas present.

Not one to give up on a challenge and really wanting to knit something lovely for Charlotte who is a wonderful person, I poured through patterns both online and in my pattern notebooks. I picked out a lacy ribbed (just has one row with eyelets in the stitch repeat) and it looks lovely at the top. I got gauge with 9 sts/inch on my size 0s and I plugged away. It had a short row heel, which looks horrible like the person's heel would need an added little appendage at the back to fill it all in! (UGH!) I had also knit almost to the point of starting the short row toes. Well, I looked and thought that it was looking pretty huge. So the next time my feet were nice and clean I tried the socks on. Whoa...big on me and my feet are big! I wanted to sit down and have a little cry. But cranky kids kept me from having a pity party for too long.

So there it sits...what to do? I am writing Charlotte after I write this and am going to beg her mercy to be able to send this sock late. I will send the rest of her goodies on time, but this sock and I need to take a break from each other! Charlotte, when you read this please know that I do not resent knitting this sock for you!!! I am just very disappointed because I wanted it to be perfect for you. I am so sorry. I feel that if I take a break, when I come back to it I will have a fresh mind/perspective and will be able to handle it just fine with good results.

This is the most lovely yarn to knit with...I hope it can handle a third frogging!