A few clowns short of a circus.

Mad as a monkey on a trike.

A kangaroo loose in the top paddock.

And other euphemisms for being slightly crazy. (I especially like the third one from the bottom: Knitting with only one needle. How apropos!)

I've got another pair of socks knitted up, but there's something a little off about them. Hmmmm....

Don't get me wrong. The socks are lovely (IMHO), and no one but me and a very astute knitter would see the error of my ways. (And please, I'm not challenging any of you to a astute-knit-off. But why would you pay enough attention to my knitting to notice this unless you were looking for mistakes. And really, that ain't nice.)

See, what happened was... I was making up this pattern as I went and I was plagued with 'd-oh' moments from the start. The original plan was to knit the ribbed cuff and then work in stockinette for the rest of the sock - to show off the wonderful colors. But I had cast on too many for plain stockinette.

Plan B: the stitch count would work perfect for the cable pattern from the Log Cabin Socks in Handknit Holidays. The 72 stitches on my sock worked three pairs of the cables just fine. And the colors were doing this cool, slow spiral around the ankle. All was well.

I only did one repeat of the cable pattern before starting on the heel. I was concerned that having a cables on the heel may be a little uncomfortable for shoes with backs, like sneakers, so I went back to my simple 2x2 ribbing.

I realized that for the foot to fit, I would need to decrease more than typical for the gusset. I went down to 64 stitches, but because I didn't put enough forethought into this, needles 1&2 had 36 stitches (half of the 72) and needles 3&4 had 28 stitches.

This required some fancy footwork (Ha! Yes - pun intended!) and manipulation with the decreases at the toe. The top of the foot/toe was decreased every round where as the bottom of the toe was decreased every other round until the last four rounds, which all were decrease rows.

Um... does this sound complex enough yet? Well guess what - I still had the second sock to knit! Eep!

Actually, I did okay until [doom doom doom-doom] the heel, when, for whatever the heck I was thinking, I worked it in 34 stitches. Um. Instead of the 36 which would be half!

Well, okay. I kept moving on. The heel would be fine. But apparently numbers are not my friends, and when I did the decreases at the gusset I went a little further, I guess. Oops.

So now I had 36 stitches on needles 1&2 and 24 stitches on needles 3&4. Um.... Of course, I didn't notice this until I was nearly to the toe and starting thinking about those decreases! (And where were my notes all this time? Why right there in my knitting notebook. D-oh!)

Okay, long story short. (Or is it too late for that?) I worked the toe decreases just fine. Both socks fit well and look marvelous. And I can't hardly tell that one is a bit tighter around the foot than the other... much.

The stats:

• Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock in Marbles
• Pattern: my own, but inspired by the Log Cabin Socks
• Needles: size US #1 (2.25 mm) blonde wood double-points picked up at MSWF (These feel okay to knit with, but they're not as smooth as Crystal Palace bamboo needles. Also, one seemingly skinnier-but-still-size-1 needle bent during the first few rounds. It never got worse, but I started to dread that needle.)
• Gauge: Okay... I really didn't do a swatch, but based on the completed socks - 8 sts/inch and 11 rows/inch
• Notes: I learned my lesson. Take detailed notes and then USE them for the second sock! If I play with this cable pattern again (which I might), I would knit less ribbed cuff (1" instead of 2) and add an inch of ribbing on the bottom of the leg to give more stretch at the ankle.

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