murphy's pair of socks (a letter to my sweetie)

Dear Sweetie,

Remember those handknit socks I promised you for Christmas?

First, I started making you a pair of blue/green socks. After a couple of inches I decided that that yarn was too purply, therefore too girly (eventually I showed it to you and you said it was fine, but by that time I'd started on a different, more masculine pair of socks for you). So I gave up on those.

So I knit you the first sock of a new pair. It was the same yarn and the same needles and the same number of stitches as the pair I made you this summer, but I used a different stitch pattern for the leg. I was worried about the size as I knit, but didn't listen to myself. When the sock was finished it was clear that this pattern made an insufficiently stretchy, therefore too small, leg. So I gave up on that sock. Using the same yarn, I started another sock in a stretchier pattern.

I knit that sock. There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with it.

I unraveled the first, too tight sock, rewound it into a ball, and began knitting the second sock. Yesterday while you were at the museum with the penguin boy I finished the leg and turned the heel on that sock. This morning I picked up the gusset stitches and began the ankle decreases. After about 8 rows I noticed that something was wrong: in a place where I should have had 16 stitches on a needle, I only had twelve. After several minutes of counting, ripping, recounting, picking up, more counting, I figured out that, indeed, I have knit the ENTIRE SECOND SOCK with four fewer stitches than I knit the first (sufficiently stretchy, therefore not scrapped) sock.

I cannot fix this before Christmas. I have to knit a penguin. I love you and I want you to have many many pairs of handknit socks, but on this particular pair of socks in time for Christmas, I have to say "uncle."

with heartfelt apologies, I am your lovin

AV