As someone I know would say: “That’s a whole lotta sock you got going on there, girl”.
Truthfully I am not happy with my first/last socks. The pattern, Clandestine, is really fun to knit from a knitterly point of view: twisted stitches, increases, decreases and wrapped stitches. I look forward to every new row and have that “just one more row” thing going on. But, really, the resulting fabric is busy. No, it is more than just busy, it is fussy. The dictionary definition of “fussy” actually sums up this sock perfectly: “filling with ornament what should be empty space“.
I was just about to turn the heel last night after an evening of intense knitting and then I glanced at the heel flap, looked at the leg pattern and then looked at the heel flap again. The heel flap was everything that the leg wasn’t: elegant, tidy and, well, pretty.
What is a girl to do? I did what any knitter these days would do (probably): I went to Ravelry and posted about my predicament in several groups. The Ravelympics Sock Hockey group suggested that I should frog my halfway-done sock and seek out another pattern. “It is not defeat; it is regrouping your troops and rethinking your strategy,” one knitter said. On twitter, friends doubted it could be that bad. I decided to sleep on it and here I am.
That heel flap sure is pretty, isn’t it? I wish the entire sock could be that like. At the end of the day, I would like a pair of socks that I am proud of – not from a knitterly point of view, because I do not need knitting validation, but from a “look how pretty my socks are!” perspective. I have suddenly turned into a project knitter, it seems.
So, I am regrouping and rethinking my strategy. We are off to a life drawing class today, so I will not have time to knit anything until tonight. This should leave me plenty of time to decide whether to frog or to continue. Funnily enough I think I have almost already made my decision.
well, to my eyes, it IS busy, but I might also choose to see it as ornate. Me, I’d keep going. It’s a glorious green and the heel flap looks marvellous. For that reason I’d keep going.
But I suspect you won’t.
I think it looks fine but in the end, its how you feel about it. If I’m having doubts about a sock, I try the part that done over my foot to get an idea about what the finished sock will look like.
I don’t like that pattern either – though not because it’s ‘filling with ornament what should be empty space’: my interior decor style is ‘oh, look, an inch of nothing, let’s put a knick-knack there!’ Rather, the lace pattern is dominated by two motifs of roughly the same size that are competing against each other.
My first sock was Hedera, also by Cookie A, and it’s a pattern with knitterly and aesthetic satisfaction. Also the Snowflake Lace Socks by Melanie Berney are lovely and simple-looking.
Aaaand the Clandestine sock is no more..