Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Oh Honestly…

What exactly is my problem?

My sock-knitting mojo, she has abandoned me entirely.

These are my feet.

MyFeet

Sandal Tan


I’ve had them for a long time, nearly 40 years. It’s not as if anything about them has changed recently. They haven’t grown since I was about 15. They’re a US size 7.5, 8 inches around with nothing to distinguish them.

But I can’t seem to knit a pair of socks to fit me. My last pair of socks was too big, and they were given to a friend with slightly larger feet. They fit her quite well, and she likes them very much. I liked them very much too, but it was not to be.

No biggie, I thought, I’ll just make another pair. I have a metric ton of sock yarn to choose from.

So I knit a quick gauge swatch with the Pagewood Farms Camo (Ravelry Link) that the Random List Generator chose for me. Then I settled on the Stansfield 12 pattern out of Sensational Knitted Socks, cast on the requisite number of stitches and got to work.

It was coming along quite well, I thought…

Leg

Indeed, the knitting was going well. A long lovely spiral of knits and purls coming off the needles day after day. There was nothing wrong with the pattern, the yarn, or the gauge The socks would have been perfect if I'd just kept knitting them.

What was wrong was all in my mind. I got it into my head that the leg needed to be 6 inches long, even though the very comprehensive tables in my book say that the leg should be 7.5 inches.

Nope, had the number 6 stuck in my head, and 6 it would be.

I knit my first short-row heel, and it turned out OK. But the leg was too short, although my brain refused to see it. Heck, I even took a picture of the silly thing on my foot, and it didn’t compute that the leg was at least in inch and a half too short.

TryOn

To compound the problem, I then proceeded to knit the foot too short as well. Finished off both socks with my first pair of round toes, and tried them on.

WhatsWrong

Finally, I saw it. Heck, I felt it… these socks are too small for me. Not just a little short in the leg or the foot, but too short in both.

I can take some comfort in the fact that when I screw up I do it with a will.

It’s as if I had been carrying around this picture in my head of feet that were smaller than mine, feet that belonged to someone else entirely.

My mother’s feet.

MomzFeet

At this rate, if I try to knit a pair of socks for my mother they’ll turn out the perfect size for my 2-month old niece.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

toe-up, my dear. try them on as you go. even better - toe-up with an afterthought heel. unless of course you'd like to just give your sock yarn to me :shifty:

TinkingBell said...

Ha! Take that sock mojo!

Never mind!

Time to cat on a pair of socks for someone with HUGE feet!

That should fix it!

Anna said...

Listen to Vendie. She's wise.

:kram:

brownishcoat said...

Your feet are so cute!

I think we all should take pictures of our feet and post them on our blogs. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Yourmum says,

Every time I wear these sox I get complements. I readily tell one and all that my brilliant daughter made them!
Thanks so much. Keep up the great work. I will proudly wear any of your
too small projects!
laura