Wednesday, January 9, 2013

From Christmas Knit to Winter Gift

I still don't have the second pair of Christmas gift socks done:


but the second sock looks exactly the same as this one...

except for one minor, awkward difference.

I don't even know how it happened.  How many socks have I knit, anyway?  Enough to know that I always, always knit one round plain after picking up stitches for the gusset, and start decreasing for the arch on the next round.  I definitely don't decrease on the plain round and then do it again on the next round, especially on one side only.

And if for some reason of distraction I do such a crazy thing, I never go as far as finishing the entire gusset before I notice.

So the question is, do I rip out that foot and redo the gusset so that both socks are perfect?

Or just knit onward pretending nothing happened?

(spoiler alert: after dithering overnight I opted for the Or and kept going.  let's hope the intended recipient doesn't go all Princess and the Pea over it.)

Now, when you get that close to finishing a Christmas knit late, and then reposition your world view so it becomes a Winter Gift, it's very important to add in another complication, so I did:


I just couldn't wait to cast on my new Vesper socks.  Aren't the colours great?  Red is coming up next.

What's even more great than the colours is knitting with square needles again.  I can't remember why it was so important to me to knit the gift socks on round wood needles (because the stitches come out a bit tighter, maybe?) but MAN have my hands missed the squares.  They just feel so much better, and knit so much faster.

And there you have it.  Flexibility and Adaptation: two important life skills taught by knitting under pressure.

Here's the same principle applied to a boxwood wreath:


This baby was a Christmas decoration for the living room wall until I moved it to the front door with a snowy white bow on it.  I think it looks pretty cute and Winter-ish, don't you?

And now it's time to head off for another busy day.  Oh - and just so you're warned, tomorrow's post may not happen at my usual dawn publication time unless I decide to go pictureless, because my camera doesn't like working nights and it's going to take me till then to get picture-ready for the thing I wanted to talk about.  I'll get here eventually!

1 comment:

Leslie said...

I'm wearing my Holiday Boogie Woogie socks today. I loved working with the yarn..the colors were so fun, and the socks are so soft and pretty. And I don't even mind that they don't match at all with my navy blue top...