Twinknit

For all of us, there are times when we experience exponential growth — when we sleep in our own rooms for the first time as kids; when we learn to drive and have sudden freedom; leaving for college and gaining independence; first apartments, first jobs, first loves, first heartbreaks, marriages, kids, you get the point. Well, this week, I had a knitting moment of growth, and it came in the form of these socks:

Pattern: My own

Yarn: Handspun by the delightful young Sarah [the color is more true below]

Needles: US 3 dpns

Notes: And here is where the growth happens…

These socks kinda came out of nowhere. Saturday morning, I got up, went for a run, and headed out to the farmers market. When I returned, there was a package waiting for me — a skein of delicious, soft, squishy handspun from my Kentucky pal, Sarah. The yarn was a total surprise and a wonderful delight; I couldn’t wait to cast on, so I did. I only had 238 yards, so I decided that a nice, cozy pair of socks were in order. I’m not much of a toe-up girl, so I estimated how long the socks should be and knit away. I picked a subtle pattern that I thought would show off the texture of the yarn and hammered out both socks in an evening and a half. This is when the problems started. See, the socks were a little short and I had plenty of yarn left over. This nagged at me. And then I noticed something — sock #2 was one repeat shorter than sock #1. Dammit. I had a choice. Old Jennie would have just tried to stretch and squish and make do with one sock that was slightly shorter. New Jennie (i.e. 2007’s “I’m-a-responsible-knitter-trying-to-master-a-Craft-Jennie) would have ripped sock #2 to the ankle, added a repeat, and reknit the foot. What do I decide to do? The unthinkable — I decide to cut. But not only do I decide to cut the ribbing off of sock#2, knit the added repeat and reknit the ribbing. Oh no. That would be too easy. Instead, I cut the ribbing off, reknit not only one extra repeat, but four (’cause I had all that extra yarn, you know) — making the sock taller and more comfortable. Then I grafted the ribbing back on sock #2. I repeated the whole process on sock #1 so that it was also taller.

Getting ready:

Separation. Breathe.

Knit up:

Graft:

The idea of cutting my knitting used to give me a heart attack. But then I realized it’s no big deal. What’s the worst that can happen? I have to reknit the sock?  It only took me an hour or three in the first place. And now? I have wonderful cotton-candy-soft socks that make me prouder than all the pomatomi and huron socks in the world! Today I can say it — I got mad knitting skillz (that’s right — skillz with a ‘z’).