Feverishly Knitting

A few days ago, feverishly would have been the literal truth.  But my fever broke Sunday and so did the last bit of yarn at the end of my grafted heel.  Hooray!  One sock down, one more to go.  Can I finish it in a mere 10 days?  Ugh.  I don't relish it but I have to.

For some reason, socks have always been tough going for me.  Ok, maybe the reasons for that aren't completely unknown.  I'm what some folks call a combination knitter, which to most mortals mean I knit funny.  My stitches are twisted.  Which isn't so bad on normal flat knitting--all the stitches are so precise and pretty looking--but on knitting in the round, egad, even if I use wool, I lose at least half of my stretchiness because without a purl round, the stitches don't get un-twisted.  But regular knitting.. how do you people do it?!  It hurts my hands, turns them to pretzel dough trying to do it the "normal" way.  Depending on the project, this can be compensated for, but in socks, when stretchy is so very important.. let's just say planning ahead doesn't seem to make much help, either.

Anyhow, I now have a single, very twisted up sock (one could almost same painfully contorted!) waiting to be blocked into normal foot shape.  Right now, it looks like a sock only an Escher lover would take to heart.  Yes, it's that bad.  I can't even take a picture of it.  You, dear reader, would ask if I accidentally made a moebius sock.  That's how bad it is!  Wait til it's blocked, I promise.

Someday, I am going to have to figure out this twisty problem and learn how to make socks right.  I have a New Yorker brother who would probably love to have nice warm socks of his own right now.  I made him a lovely warm pair.  But there's not enough give in them so I don't think even a circus contortionist could get them on and that, my dears, is *after* blocking.

On the positive side, my dear Uncle (the recipient of the current pair) has very narrow feet and I made sure to knit extra loose, so I have high hopes this time around.  He liked the scarf I knit him so much, he's been showing it off to every person he meets.  I expect the next time I visit his small, rural town in Ontario, everyone will know me as The Scarf Niece.  This rather amuses me.  So much so that I want to start on a vest next, so The Scarf will have company.  Eventually, I might get up to an entire outfit of hand knitted clothing!  I just can't wait to see how he's going to show off the socks.  I can see him now, finding a way to fit it taking off his shoes in his next sermon, lol.

Red Greene used to say, if the ladies don't find you handsome, they can at least find you handy.  Not sure how that transposes to fit my situation--if the lads don't find you drop dead gorgeous, at least you can chase the bad ones off with pointy sticks?  Ah well.  It's sad we no longer live in an age where handicrafts such as knitting mean respect anymore.