The Crafting Fates

Last time on Burnstopia, M was celebrating like a Loon because she acquired (through questionable means) a truly excellent recipe.

This week on Burnstopia, M eats Humble Pie dished out heavily by the Crafting Fates.

So this year for Chris' Christmas socks, I picked out two different color work patterns.  The first was a really cool nautical theme, and I messed that up real good, so I moved on to another geometric pattern, and I messed that up real good, so I just decided that perhaps color work was just not meant to be this year.  So I started searching for cable patterns and I found one that I really liked and cast on.

By October I had finished the first sock and I thought, "Excellent!  I'm going to get these done by December 1st and have loads of time to do other things!"  So I cast on the second and while Chris was gone to Savannah I worked diligently on the second sock.

(His only request was that they be a SURPRISE so I have to work on them when he's not around.)

So I finished the gusset decreases on the second sock on Tuesday night and I pulled out the first (and FINISHED) sock to measure against it and count the cable twist so I knew how many rounds I needed to knit before starting the toe decreases.

And I found a HOLE.  Not a little hole.  And not a dropped-stitch hole, a gaping hole with FRAYED ends around it.  A hole that looked like a BROKEN piece of yarn. I felt totally deflated.  So I went to all my knitting books searching for how to correct a broken strand of yarn in an otherwise perfect body of knitting, and lo, there was NOTHING.

So I thought and I thought and I thought about it and I figured I had two solutions:   I could darn the hole closed as neatly as possible, or I could CUT the foot off, unravel back to the start of the hole and REKNIT the entire foot.

Last night at my sister's I darned it shut.  And it looked awful.  And as I thought about it, I thought "What is the point of the gift?  Is it the sock, or is it more than that?"  And I realized, it's so much more than that.  The gift really isn't the socks, the gift is a tangible manifestation of the love that I have for him.  There is very little in our life that is perfect, but this pair of socks that I make for him once a year, THAT can be perfect.

So last night I cut and unraveled and picked up the stitches to reknit the foot.  As I was painfully picking up those stitches I thought about the women who run the bakery in Savannah, and maybe this Hole business was just, I'm reducing their profits by making my own, I suppose it's only fair that the Crafting Fates exact some form of vengeance on their behalf.

If you'll excuse me, I have TWO socks now to finish before Christmas.