A Sock and A Prayer

Hey Flan,

I hope everything is going well with your dad. The prayers of everyone here are with you and him. Fingers and everything else imaginable are crossed.

On a lighter, and hopefully distracting, note, I am having issues with socks- again. Why is it that every knitter on the planet flocks to socks and I am left out in the cold? How did the sock gene miss me so profoundly? It's not only that I lack the desire to knit the little buggers, but also that when I knit anything other than plain vanilla socks they come out looking exceedingly funny?

Case in point: The Socks for The Sister. I was all prepared to put aside my differences and give socks their due. The provisional cast on and I got along well (except for the purls, which are usually quite delightful but in this instance just look funny) and the short row toes came out pretty well. Everything looked up, until I started the pattern. They appear as if their maker was, well, more than a little bit "challenged". Everyone else who was knitting socks at SNB had absolutely gorgeous socks. There are socks with lace, socks with cables, socks that I can barely describe and one with an "Eye of Partridge" heel which is about as pretty as a heel can be. Mine, however, look like a hairball dissected with chopsticks. Not pretty. After three consecutive evenings of knitting I took a deep breath and resolved myself to the fact that these socks were not meant for my sister and this yarn was definitely not meant for this pattern. Not wanting to give up on socks altogether, I pulled the needles and grabbed some Soccatta The Mommy chose while down here last September. Fingers crossed this goes better than the last pair.