Of Most Maddening Socks

Happy Monday!  Another week has come and gone and man what a week it was.  I try to keep discussion of my journey with headaches (to put it nicely) to a minimum, but this week was a doozy.  I did a lot of lying flat on my back with a pillow over my head, which was not conducive to good knitting.  It does not help that I picked what is turning into the hardest sock ever to knit as my first January turn in for Knit and Crochet House Cup.

Honestly I should probably go start something super fast and simple just to be sure I get something turned in this month.  The sock is gorgeous, but that patterning is harder than it looks.  Every other row is a cable crossing and half of those cross knits with purls.  I am not using a cable needle, but they are still a challenge.  And then there was the heel.  I'm not sure if you are familiar with Mince Pie Mayhem, but it has a gorgeously constructed heel that brings the patterning down while building a gusset so that you don't have to pick up stitches.  Brilliant!  Gorgeous!  So not working for me.


Yesterday after my third attempt to make the instructions make sense (Seriously, according to Ravelry I am the only one incapable of this) I ended up subbing in the short row heel from the V Junkie pattern.  The result has been very gratifying and I worked it over the same number of stitches the heel was supposed to take.  But now I won't have the lovely sweeping panels of stockinette enclosing the patterned instep to a sweetly rounded toe.  Instead I'm decreasing all of my extra stitches and trying on the sock every other row to make sure it does not stretch awkwardly across the top of my foot.  It'd be quite maddening if I did not love the yarn so (Space Cadet Creations Lucina in After a Flame).


Maybe I should just go swatch for a sweater.