So is there anyone out there who hasn’t heard of the Sock Summit?? Is there anyone besides me who isn’t going?
Why aren’t I going? I’m a professed addicted sock knitter. Well, for one thing, I’m also a farmer. I also live in Michigan. You do the math. Even if the money were there, the critters demand to be fed twice a day. So, no sock summit for me, at least not this year.
So, I loved all of the horror stories about your socks, sure made me feel better about my “less than perfect” socks. Here’s my horror story: I knit a pair of socks out of Flat Foot Yarn by Conjoined Creations. Hated the colorway, loved the socks when they were done, however, I experimented. The first sock I used a pattern that I came across, nothing special, just liked it, it was a toe up so what the heck. It came out ok, really, it looked good. Next sock, I found another toe up pattern (which has now become my default standard pattern) and knitted according to that. It fit. It was gorgeous, not just nice, but awesome. So where’s the horror in that? These 2 socks do not match. At all. I’m not talking color, or splotchiness, I’m talking about that sock 1 fit until I tried on sock 2. The the first sock became something more of the “green giant” variety. It was huge, and long and it fit fine until I tried on the other. So, there, now the whole world knows!
Tell me your horror stories, it might get you a book!
My horror is doing top down socks and running out of yarn……. happened once. Now I do toe up !!
I’ve only knit a couple of pairs so far – and all has gone ok. Keep my fingers crossed it’s good knitting and not just good luck!
I knit up a gorgeous pair of socks in a gorgeous pattern and a gorgeous yarn. Toe-up, on dpns. My standard method. These were county fair material, they turned out so nice. I’m all set to do the cuff ribbing on the second sock. I grab the first to confirm the number of rows of ribbing to do and find not one, not two, not three, but FOUR dropped stitches! I now have to pick out the already woven in ends and cast off and rip back over two inches of lace pattern to fix the first sock. And the second is still on the needles…
My horror story? Aside from the sock whose foot was too small for the length…toe up socks are kicking my butt!! I love knitting cuff down, and maybe thats just cause i learned that way first but… i have had a lvoely tow up on the needles for over a year now! Not only that but they have sat on the end table in the living room staring, mocking me. I need to get over it and pick them back up. Of course now i more than likely need to frog them as i may not be able to find where i left off….le sigh!
I’m pretty bummed, but I’m also not going to Sock Summit. It’d be amazing, and I’m determined to go some year, but this year, I decided that I’d rather make my mortgage payment.
Sock catastrophes. I’m not much for patterns, and more than once I’ve cast on, increased, knit the sock, cast off, cast on for the second sock, increased, knit the sock, cast off…and then realized that one sock has extra (generally just two or four, but once *twelve*) stitches. I do it on autopilot and didn’t even notice until I tried them on.
Also, the first time I tried to do two socks at a time on a long circular needle, I managed to cross the yarn between socks, not just once but several times. It had to be ripped back almost to the toes. I was so frustrated I could’ve cried.
The one big disappointment I’ve had is that I belong to a sock club – a really popular one – and got some really interesting yarn that was a superwash/silk blend (note: all the yarn in my 3 years of membership in this club has been 100% superwash and has proven to be machine washable). I knit the socks, really liked them, wore them once then put them in a mesh bag and washed them in my front loader on gentle… got them out and they had felted.
I sent an email to the club and they pointed to the verbose notes that are enclosed with the pattern about dyeing the yarn… I never read that stuff, I just looked at the yarn label before winding – no special instructions there, then started knitting. Bummer.
The yarn WAS beautiful and so were the socks, but I’d never make socks I couldn’t wash easily – I could have easily used a scarf out of that yarn.
I am not going to Sock Summit either, sadly. Maybe when I am old enough to go out on my own…
So, my sock horror story includes the Pomatomus socks that I am working on now. I am doing them from the top-down (as always), and I had many problems with the cuff. It is knit with 10 rows, and about everytime I got to the 5th row, I dropped a few stitches. I was not that experienced in picking up dropped stitches, so ended up ripping back at least 4 times! I finally got the hang of it, and then knit all the way to the heel flap. Once there, I tried the sock on and the length was ANNOYING! Therefore, I ripped the whole thing, and redid it with only one pattern repeat. This is the first pattern with which I had to rip back so much!