Wednesday, June 13

Devilishly difficult

So there I was, coasting along with the Baudelaire socks and feeling all cocky because I'd managed to memorise the lace pattern, I'd successfully turned the heel and what's more I'd left no holes, when suddenly CRASH BANG WALLOP! She hit me with three little words. Front cable increase.

Now to be fair to Cookie A, I'm sure she didn't intend this dastardly difficult manoeuvre to be carried out on a bus. Much less a London bus driven by a Lewis Hamilton wannabe. Either that or this guy thought the brake pedal was the bass drum and was obviously fantasising about being in some banging rock band.

While all the jerking was going on, here was I trying to execute the following move (at the same time resisting executing the driver);
"knit into the front of the next 4 sts, without dropping those stitches from the left needle: you will have 4 sts on you right needle which overlap with 4sts on your left needle; knit the 4 sts from your left needle through the back loops, dropping them from the left needle as usual. You will have increased 4 stitches, with the new stitches forming a cable twist (to the right) over the old stitches".

Just like that, of course.

No mention of the contorting, stretching, slipping, fiddling, frogging, knitting again, cursing, more cursing, tutting and sighing, the splitting, unsplitting, bodging, trying again, etc etc etc. And that was just FRONT cable increase. Follow that with BACK cable increase and you then have to scrape yourself up off the floor in a sweaty, frustrated and angry mess.

Little wonder then, that when I got a few rounds further on (luckily this manoeuvre is only one per sock!) and realised that Something Was Not Right with one of my increases, I just shrugged and thought 'no-one will know'!

So that's just between the two of us, OK?

2 comments:

The MacKay Way said...

Just think - by the time you get to this step on the 2nd sock, you'll have gone over it all too many times in your head and will be able to do it eye closed!

Wondering if you know of any knit events/SnB's/Booze-n-Yarns in London this weekend? I'm in from NYC with my needles and possibly time to meet up.
Cheers!

rahime said...

Well, they sure do look pretty in the picture. I usually like solid yarns with lacy patterns but the variegated yarn you picked is perfect! I'm sure your swap pal will love them.