Which of These Things Is Not Like the Others?

OK, so this doesn't work when there are only two things, but do you see a problem here??? Well, I do. But I didn't until I was one row away from starting the toe decreases on sock two.

Take a good look at the heels (oops, one sock is upside down):















Yup. For some reason, I switched back to the striping yarn before I turned the heel on sock #2. But I didn't notice until way, way too late, unless I wanted to frog the whole foot, which I didn't. These socks have been a series of mistakes from the very beginning of sock #1.
Mistake #1: I don't remember what it was, but I had to start over fairly soon after beginning.
Mistake #2: I picked up the OTN sock and enthusiastically started knitting. Many rows later I noticed something odd. There was a hole, and the brown striping zigged when it should have zagged. Ooops, a short row. I didn't realize I had knitted in the wrong direction. Ribbit, ribbit...
Mistake #3: The yarn is called Paca-Ped HT. The HT, of course, means "heel" and "toe." So I just used the solid brown yarn as reinforcing yarn for the heel flap. At the time, I did wonder why the reinforcement yarn was a solid color, and why it was as thick as the sock yarn. Well, I tell you, it made for one thick, sturdy heel. Duh. It was for contrasting heels and toes, just like the picture on the yarn label!!!!! Frogged it.

So on sock #2, I was destined to do something wrong. Today after I discovered my mistake, I took the pair, with #2 still OTN, to my LYS. My knitter friends there said that since the socks were not a gift, I should just leave them as is. They reminded me that The Yarn Harlot says that there are no knitting police. If there were, I think that they might take away my needles. However, in my defense, I started these months ago, just before I damaged my knee and needed surgery. Also, my thumb has been in a brace forEVER and that doesn't help any.

Some people say that the yarn tells you what to do, and I believe this yarn was telling me to just, for Dog's sake, finish and go on to something else. So I am...

Oops...

This past weekend, I went to Austin to visit my wonderful, perfect, gorgeous and funny grandchildren (and their parents). I had a great time just watching and listening to them. Yesterday we stuffed them in the hot car (it was HOT in Austin-over 100 every day, and one day, even 105!!!) to take them to lunch, and then to a new yarn shop in town. It's called Gauge and it's great! Lots of gorgeous yarns to pet and drool over. The woman there was very nice, and didn't even seem to mind 22-month old grandson "admiring" the yarn. I told older daughter that she was to stop me from buying any more yarn, but she must not have been listening, because, oops, I ended up with this:
It's Lorna's Laces hand-dyed Shepherd Sock Yarn (80% superwash wool, 20% nylon) and it is really, really soft and the colors are ...well, you can see the colors. My daughter and I each bought the same colorway, and will make socks out of it. Great minds think alike.

However, I REALLY had not intended to buy yarn, but resistance was futile. One of the best reasons to knit socks is that no matter where you are, if you see a sock yarn you love, you know how much you need. The same is not true of sweaters and other items, so you end up either buying a new pattern in order to buy the yarn, or you leave the yarn in the shop for another knitter. But you can ALWAYS buy sock yarn!

And if you live in Austin, and love this particular colorway in Lorna's Laces, too late---we beat you to it and bought it all. Sorry...

One Pair Down---Many, Many To Go

I finally finished the Noro socks. They aren't identical because there was a knot in the yarn at the bottom of the leg of the second sock-rats! But I love the colors anyway. Noro has GREAT colors!

I am just finished with the heel flap on the Paca-Ped Socks, and boy-howdee, do I love this yarn. It is alpaca and it is just SO soft! And instead of forming horizontal stripes, it stripes in a spiral. It's fun to watch it stripe up, and now I can't wait to see how the spiral works on the foot.

Half a Project Completed, But New Yarn Beckoning

I have half of a pair of socks finished, i.e., one sock. But when I went in to the LYS yesterday, new sock yarn shouted out to me, "Take me home!" And I did. And I want to start knitting with it, but I have NEVER started a second pair of socks before I have finished the pair OTN. The problem with starting the second sock is that I will have to unwind the ball to find the proper color to start with in order to have even remotely identical socks. But I'm lazy, so maybe I will just make fraternal-ish socks. Decisions, decisions.....

The new yarn is Paca-Ped H-T, color: Carribean Chocolate---YUM! It is a superwash Alpaca sock yarn (100g hand-dyed) with 25g. of co-ordinating heel & toe yarn for reinforcement. The yarn itself is from Peru, but it is dyed in the US. It is so soft that it is now my new favorite sock yarn---until the next new yarn at the LYS shouts out to me.