Life among amphibians
I reached the end of the Christmas stocking I'm making for Sylvia. Sort of.
A couple of weeks ago, when I had removed the waste yarn, picked up the stitches for the heel, and done everything but kitchener stitch the toe shut, I realized that the distance from the heel to the toe was just way too short. I tried very hard to convince myself that it would look all right, but in the end I had to admit to myself that I needed to frog that section and knit it again. I was a little bummed at this prospect, hating to see the joy of project completion slip from my grasp, so I put the stocking down for several days while I cranked out four washcloths from Mason-Dixon Knitting.
With the washcloths done, I had to find another excuse not to finish the stocking. So I finished up the second sleeve for Sylvia's cardigan that's been a UFO since early summer.
This evening, I bit the bullet and ripped out the last one-fourth or so of the stocking. I redid the section from the heel to the toe, adding a few non-decreasing rows in an attempt to give it a bit more length. Before, I had followed the pattern's instructions very carefully about the decreases here and ended up with something too short. So I figured maybe the pattern had a mistake in it that adding some more rows might fix.
A couple of hours later, here I was. Sure, it looks like a Christmas stocking...but something isn't quite right. The toe is pointy, and the heel is square shaped. Wait a minute...everything from the heel to the toe is rotated ninety degrees from the long part of the stocking. How in the world did that happen? (And why didn't I notice it before?)
Rather than give my daughter a misshapen stocking and try to convince her that Santa's elves have bizarrely misshapen feet, I'm going to frog everything from the heel down and do it again. If you'd like to follow along with the fun, this pattern is from Christmas Stockings: 18 Holiday Treasures to Knit, published by Interweave Press in 2001. You can also find it in the Interweave Knits holiday knitting issue that was just published.
A couple of weeks ago, when I had removed the waste yarn, picked up the stitches for the heel, and done everything but kitchener stitch the toe shut, I realized that the distance from the heel to the toe was just way too short. I tried very hard to convince myself that it would look all right, but in the end I had to admit to myself that I needed to frog that section and knit it again. I was a little bummed at this prospect, hating to see the joy of project completion slip from my grasp, so I put the stocking down for several days while I cranked out four washcloths from Mason-Dixon Knitting.
With the washcloths done, I had to find another excuse not to finish the stocking. So I finished up the second sleeve for Sylvia's cardigan that's been a UFO since early summer.
This evening, I bit the bullet and ripped out the last one-fourth or so of the stocking. I redid the section from the heel to the toe, adding a few non-decreasing rows in an attempt to give it a bit more length. Before, I had followed the pattern's instructions very carefully about the decreases here and ended up with something too short. So I figured maybe the pattern had a mistake in it that adding some more rows might fix.
A couple of hours later, here I was. Sure, it looks like a Christmas stocking...but something isn't quite right. The toe is pointy, and the heel is square shaped. Wait a minute...everything from the heel to the toe is rotated ninety degrees from the long part of the stocking. How in the world did that happen? (And why didn't I notice it before?)Rather than give my daughter a misshapen stocking and try to convince her that Santa's elves have bizarrely misshapen feet, I'm going to frog everything from the heel down and do it again. If you'd like to follow along with the fun, this pattern is from Christmas Stockings: 18 Holiday Treasures to Knit, published by Interweave Press in 2001. You can also find it in the Interweave Knits holiday knitting issue that was just published.
3 Comments:
D'oh are you really going to frog it??
I think it looks cute like that! Seriously! It looks like an elf's sock, totally.
I like it!
:-)
Thanks, but it's pointy in a not-good, not-elf-y way, I'm afraid. Wait until you see it in person tomorrow, then you'll see what I mean. :)
I guess I've got to see it. Because I think it looks fine and elfy.
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