Thursday, September 27, 2007

Well, crap...



I just couldn't pretend anymore. I had to face reality and accept the fact that I was never going to get a size 13 man's sock out of the teensy-tiny bit of yarn I had left, and I ripped the entire thing back this afternoon. So, bummer. But I guess it could be worse. I could have run out of yarn while in the homestretch of my second sock. Yup, just call me "there's always a silver lining"-girl.

I'm also a tad bit concerned about how snuggly the sock fit my own foot, especially since it is (was - booh!!!) destined for the foot of a particularly large man. It would seem that, despite my swatching, the knitting goddess has once more kicked my bee-hind in the gauge department.

So now I'm faced with two options. I can choose another pattern or I can finagle this one to try to make it fit a man's foot (you know, without the toe cleavage). Remember that I chose this yarn (Fleece Artist Merino) because it had been caked for a long time and was an appropriate "man" colour (whatever that means). Plus I've been able to knit a man's size ten and a half without any problems.

Now, I happen to like this pattern. I think it's classy, and I really want to knit something from Knitting Vintage Socks. I want to get on the Nancy Bush bandwagon, you know? But I'm not, I repeat NOT, a pattern finagler. If I don't like something in the pattern, I usually select another one. I'm not opposed to finagling, it's just that I'm not quite confident in my abilities to do it successfully. It seems incredibly complex. Like I'd need to use a slide-ruler, or possibly an abacus.

But since I really want to use THIS pattern with THIS yarn, my hands are tied. I think I'm going to go up to a size 2.5 mm needle (from a 2.0mm, which was giving me 9 stitches to the inch, even though I had swatched at 8.5 - WHATEVER!!!), and reduce the number of stitches from 80 to 70. Hopefully, that'll give me the same circumference but will use less yarn per row.

Nnnnnnnnnn..... I'm already getting a headache.

You know, if I'd just bought more yarn in the first place, I wouldn't be in this situation... Grumble, grumble.

2 comments:

Montreal Mama said...

I'm kind of glad that my hubby has average size 10 feet! I would never knit socks for my father though, he wears a size 15. Not happening!

Jennifer Lori said...

Couldn't you just reknit the same socks you were knitting...but make a shorter cuff? If you shorten them by an inch and a half, you should get what you need for the toes, especially since the toes decrease around.

The other option is to knit them toe-up and there's no way you'll run out, as you knit the foot then keep going on the leg until you have no more then bind off.