Fiber Fool

Forget Eye Candy Friday! What could be a better way to kick off the weekend than laughter? Okay, we’ll start with the pretty first…

Any one recognize this patently girl-y yarn from earlier this summer? Well, I was feeling a bit haunted by my UFOs lately. Some would be quick fixes if I just sat down and did the tedious part of picking up stitches and frogging. While I was recovering from the Labor Day Weekend Bug ™, I swatched for my sweater. While I waited for that sizeable swatch (almost the size of a sleeve, I kid you not - in fact, it fit as a leg warmer) to dry I decided it would be a good time to tackle some of those quick fix things to hopefully up the FO count and decrease the UFO count.

I figured the Fugly Fountain of Youth socks would be the quickest to get to the FO state. Not to mention before too long it’ll be too chilly for shorty socks and I’m already longing for autumnal colors, not these fun spring/summer colors. So I took small needle to cuff and then frogged. Then I knit.

You know, I went into this cocky. Perhaps that is where I went wrong? I really did not think it possible for these anklets to get uglier, but they have exceeded fugly! It’s not the yarn, it isn’t the stitch pattern. In fact, for a varigated yarn I find the stitch pattern to stand on its own against it quite well. It’s all in that &#(@ darn ruffle that is evading me.

I’m not sure if the problem is knitting for too long after the increases for the ruffle (the stitch pattern instructions give no hint on that front). Or, perhaps my bind off is reducing the curling some? Maybe it is because I wanted very shorty socks and there just isn’t a way for the ruffle to do so when it is forming almost right corners on each side of foot. I haven’t yet decided what to do. I am *extremely* thankful that I had the foresight to only fix one sock at a time, rather than both!

*sigh* The problems one runs into when doing a concept design.

While it looks closer to what I envisioned in my head when it is in my cute orange dansko clogs, I don’t think I’d ever wear them in this state - at least not outside the house and even inside the house only if I hadn’t gotten to wash all the rest of the hand knit socks. I figure I have a few choices for proceeding…

• Frog back to the ribbing and just bind off there and call it good enough for now, and revisit my idea for the pattern when it is once again more weather appropriate
• Frog back all the way to the end of the heel and the instep design, knit the design all the way around the leg for 1-2 inches to where the sock looks more straight across the top rather making right angles between the instep and heel and then try the ruffle
• Frog back the second sock, do the ruffle as I just did, except make it half as tall, then wash both to see if a bath relaxes the fabric enough to make it ruffle more and then choose my preferred sock and make the other one match
• Frog back to the end of the heel and instep stitch pattern and picot the top like I did on my sunshine anklets
• Toss them in a bag and forget about their existence until late winter when I’m dreaming of color again

I really have no idea which way I’ll go. I really would like to cross off another UFO sometime soon, but will have deadline knitting/spinning pressing upon me pretty quickly too. In the meantime, I suspect I’ll spend some time this weekend sketching out more design ideas that I need to get down on paper until I can do something with them. I may perhaps fix the design issue with the Bixbite socks as well. Wish me luck!

I hope the laughter you have gotten from these socks has been a good way to start your weekend! Have a good one!