The Mismatched Socks

Yay, they are done! Pheew, this was truly a learning experience once again. Although honestly speaking all projects are learning projects as I'm still very much a beginner... But they are done, they are warm and I like them, although there were numerous things that went wrong...

Space-dyed (liukuvärjätty) yarn isn't the best for socks, some say,
but I like the mismatched look. It's like something Pippi Longstocking (Peppi Pitkätossu) would wear :)

So, what did I learn? First, learn how to count tension/gauge (tiheys), girl! How I managed to mess it up so royally, I still don't know. But hey, there's always the next time. Second, with my style of knitting I just cannot have multiple purled (nurjia) stitches in the beginning of the needle. They stretch out beyond recognition, pulling the previous knitted stitch from the previous needle with them. But once you move them to the end of the needle, ta-da, no trouble at all.

Then I also noticed that 3 p 3 k rib (joustinneule) is so not my thing. Well, maybe if the needles had been thinner the rib would have stayed in shape, but even so, better change that to something else the next time I see that in a pattern.

I apparently also cannot count stitches when it comes to doing cables. As you can see from the pictures, nearly all of the motifs are of different size. They were supposed to have 5 rows between all "cables", but some now have four, some five and some might have six. Oh well, wonky is the way to go...

You can also tell the difference between me knitting normally and me trying to really knit super tight to make the socks a bit less big. (Also my shoulders noticed the death grip I had on the needles. Ouch!) There are 12 motifs on each sock but because the sock without the neon green stripe was knit tighter than the one with the stripe, the last motif (that might look like a leaf?) is bigger than in the other one. I don't mind, though :)

The pink stripe in the ankle is almost in the same spot in both of them!

Do you also think when you're knitting the foot of a sock that it's not possible for anyone to have such long feet? :D I always find myself doubting halfway through whether the instructions in the pattern were meant for Goofy, especially with socks that have such a low leg (varsi) as these ones.

Oh, and this is hilarious: After I'd done the second, tight-ass sock and noticed how much nicer the rib looked, I decided to rip the first sock starting from the ankle/cuff. I'm pretty sure that everyone else knows that when you rip the "wrong" way, things get way more complicated. How on earth can the yarn twist and turn in such a way that it's impossible to rip the stitches without pulling the yarn through every single knitted stitch by hand? Is this normal? Or did my socks just have a life of their own? Oh well, I managed to get a couple of rows ripped and knit them then again, tighter. And it did help a bit. But I still think I might need to buy some elastic cord for the leg... And I also came up with a brand new (?) term! If ripping by knitting backwards is called tinking (knitting spelled backwards) and ripping in general is called frogging (frogs say ribbit... get it?) then by ripping "backwards" I just gorfed these socks! Ha! :D

Pattern: DROPS short socks

 Yarn: Drops Big Delight

Needles: 5 mm

 Mood: Yay, they didn't turn out so bad!

In other news: the holiday starts NOW! Tomorrow evening we will be in Ubud, Bali. Stay tuned :) Oh, and for the benefit of some of my Finnish readers, I added some Finnish terms in the mix. I don't know if you need them or not, but the linguist in me always wants to help everyone. Hope that doesn't get everyone even more confused ;)

With love, Lilje