pomatomus: nothing is going right these days!

First the Sunrise must be redone. Then . . . um, I guess that was the only one of my disappointments. The “then” leads right into the current problem. Hm. Guess my subject line should be reworked. No, it’s a stronger statement like this, so I’m going to leave it. Oh, don’t mind me while I talk to myself for a bit.

So Minty, what, exactly, is the problem? Well, it’s stupid. But I don’t have enough yarn for the second pair of pomatomus I’m making. Yeah, I was trying to eke out a pair of socks from one skein of Lorna’s Laces. The recommended amount to buy is 2 skeins. Based on my progress on the second sock of this pair, I don’t need a whole lot more yarn to complete it—certainly not another entire skein’s worth. I’m determined that it’s still possible to get two socks, but it is going to take some thought—and shorter socks.

I took out the one sock that I’d already finished. I thought about taking all the yarn, weighing it, and designating a halfway point, but . . . I still can, and I will. I just didn’t last night. Why stop to get out the scale when you can just barrel on ahead, staying put on the couch while watching DVDs of Buffy? My current plan:

Knit one sock toe-up. After some initial confusion about how many stitches I really needed, I ended up with this little beauty:

What a delight it was do to the short-row toe (I used Wendy’s Generic Toe-Up Sock Pattern as reference). To hold it in your hand afterward? Awww. So cute. Super simple, too, though picking up two wraps to purl them all together is not always easy. This one is 68 stitches around, and the width of the tippy-toe is 14 stitches. I jumped right into the pattern for the top of the foot, starting the pattern from row 1.

I’m going to make the overall length shorter, because the one I finished fit my foot darn near perfect, though I thought I’d made it smaller, and this pair is for my boyfriend’s mom, whose feet are smaller than mine. (Are you following all this?) I’m not going to go up as high on the leg, and I’ll make the ribbing a bit shorter.

Then—now this is where it could all fall apart—I have visions of knitting the second one top-down. I know that the stitches will be upside down, but it won’t be noticeable to the naked eye (I don’t think; certainly not to a non-knitter), and the result will be that the scales will go in the opposite direction, without any fancy rejiggering of the pattern. But it all really hinges on how much yarn the first sock uses up. (I promise, I’ll weigh all the yarn soon!) I’m fine with having only scraps leftover—in fact, I’d prefer not having little bits everywhere, because I can never make myself throw that last little bit out. The little extra parts of cotton skeins get used as waste yarn for provisional cast-ons, but what do I do with that little bit of kid slique? But I digress.

Anyway. I have other knitting to do, with a deadline, but I spent all last night thinking about these socks. I’m excited to try this little experiment. If it doesn’t work, well, it’s just a Xmas gift and I’ve got plenty of time!