My Best Sock Ever

I started making socks with the 72/36 combination on the Legare and have made my best socks ever. They have ribbing across the top of the foot and ankle and a long 1x1 cuff. I’m using Kool Aid dyed Knit Picks Bare sock yarn, 75% wool and 25% nylon. It’s silky soft and the easiest yarn I have ever used on these old machines.

I have knitted many, many socks with a long ribbed cuff and a stockinet foot. I really have to think differently to make that ribbed foot top. When you get to the heel shaping, the drive pin for the ribber comes OUT and the ribber cam gets parked over the center mark.

We were watching TV while I knitted and John surfed the Net. I don’t think I multitask well, but TV isn’t all that interesting with all the long commercial breaks. John got sick of the dumb program I was listening to and put on an interesting, recorded Cold Case.

My concentration went right away, and I forgot to pull out the drive pin at the beginning of the heel shaping. I pulled the back needles up for short rows, turned to the right, and took the ribber cams with the yarn carrier. It dropped the ribber stitches across the top of the foot. What a mess – first the needles have to come out, anything that didn’t drop has to be put on a cylinder needle, the ribber has to come off, all the dropped stitches have to be latched up with a little ribber needle, knitting has to be ripped back, ribber has to be put back on and stitches put back on ribber needles. That took me about 30 minutes, but I did it and finished my sock with very pretty yarn.

That was very interesting episode of Cold Case. In fact, on the second sock, I got all the way to the toe shaping and DID IT AGAIN! When I lifted the ribber dial this time, it was such a mess with so many stitches dropped and such unravelling that I took everything off and unraveled the sock. John suggested I stop for the evening. I took that excellent suggestion and walked away.
It’s almost like a curse, being punished by making the same idiotic and frustrating mistake over and over.

Last night after supper, I told John I had to go break a curse. I went in the den and managed to knit the second sock just perfectly.