Let's talk about socks

Well. For starters, one sock is lovely but not sufficient.


Second. When you knit a sock starting at the cuff and working your way toward the heel and toe in a tube-like formation ("top-down", as opposed to "toe-up"), you (I) just don't ever know how long to make the tube part. It's always a gamble. Am I going to run out of yarn before I get to the toes? Will the tube part be too short if I go conservative? I tend to err on the side of "no one wants a sock that's too short." Hence:

Oh. You can't see it? Let me help you.

Look. It's all well and good. We can call that one little stripe in the midst of all the big stripes a design feature. Who cares?

Well. Here's who cares: Me. Why?

Ostensibly, when you buy your run-of-the-mill sock yarn, you get one sock per ball. (Oh, it's been a long time since there's been something that could be dirty. But there you go!) So, Dr. B. buys 2 balls to make 2 socks. (You see where this is going.)

La la la, I'm knitting the first sock, I'm knitting, I'm knitting, I'm running out of yarn, but still knitting, hoping for some Chanukah-style miracle where -- despite the hard science to the contrary -- there's enough yarn to make it to the toes. La la. Fuck.

Well. I'd best dive into the second ball. (You're welcome.)

It doesn't take a genius to realize that if I was already short a set-of-toes'-worth of yarn on the first sock, the second sock will be short two sets-of-toes'-worth, turning what was a sock into a gauntlet for the foot, a.k.a. a useless tube.

"Just go buy another ball."

Yeah. You just go buy another ball.

Third. My throat still hurts. Unrelated to socks completely, but it's always good to have a set of items here on the old blog.