Above you will note my finished first pair of socks from the sock pentathalon. These socks look like a lovely knit. An interesting pattern and a soft pretty yarn, it had all the makings of a nice relaxing knit. Here is the story of how they came to be:

 

 We start with the sock pattern is released midnight on the last school day before Spring break, perfect timing. After school I went home, ate a hurried dinner, and went to bed around 4 pm. I awoke to my alarm at 11:30 pm. I made coffee, and got settled in my arm chair. I set up an audiobook on my computer. At 12 I downloaded the pattern, and began to knit. When I took a break to post my in progress photo I saw that someone had already finished one sock, while I was not even at my first heel. Barbro is an insanely fast knitter, and I tip my proverbial hat to her. All seemed to be going well. Though there was one knitter clearly ahead of me, there were precious few photos posted so far. I kept knitting. Taking small breaks to stretch my hands or eat something I knit for 13 hours straight. Shortly after 1 pm Saturday I had a pair of socks. They were finished, and I was elated. I sat down at my computer to post the picture. I went to check the page of rules to make sure I posted the photo the way I was supposed to. It would have been really annoying to be finished and gone to bed but not actually got my place because I didn’t type some specific line in the title or I posted the photo in the wrong folder. That’s when I saw it, and my heart sank. This sock came with a particular rule I had not read before knitting. The socks needed to include five repeats of the diamond pattern. Mine were a few rows shy of four repeats. They were done. Toes were finished and bound off. I looked at my socks. I thought briefly about taking out the toe and adding the extra pattern repeat to the foot, but then the socks wouldn’t fit me, and in fact would be so big they wouldn’t fit anyone I know. (Or at least they wouldn’t fit anyone I know who would wear purple socks.) I looked at my socks. I was tired. I was mad at myself. I was mad at the socks. I thought I had been finished. I picked up my scissors, and I exacted my revenge. I cut viciously at the cuff. I took down the first sock back to the diamond pattern and added another diamond and a half.  Then I reknit the cuff, which took a long time. With the second sock I was less hasty. I carefully removed the cuff with precision and forethought rather than with hatred and speed. This time the cuff was separated, but perfectly in tact. I added another diamond repeat and a half, and then seamed the cuff back onto my sock. The whole time I was remembering the Harlot’s blog entry about the afterthought heel. How she thought she would never want an afterthought heel. How as I was reading that entry I thought that I would also never need an afterthought heel. However, I did use the technique to avoid reknitting the cuff for the second sock. Thank you to the Harlot and Elizabeth Zimmerman, a truly timeless knitter.

 

When I first thought I was finished, and then realized I would have to go back and do some more work on these socks I almost gave up. I almost just went to bed. I had been awake for 13 hours, and had not really gotten a good night’s sleep before that. I was certain there was no way I would get a respectable place after this catastrophe. But then I thought, hey I have come this far, and I kept going. Tired, annoyed, mad at myself for not reading the whole set of rules first, and with sore fingers I kept knitting. In the end I placed fourth. I finished my socks after knitting for 20 hours. When I was finished there were little pieces of purple yarn all over my apartment, as well as dirty dishes, needles, and yarn. I spent an hour cleaning, unable to sleep with the adrenaline still going, and feeling slightly punchy from lack of sleep. I finally went sleep already planning how to do things differently next time.

 

The moral of the story: read all the rules before you start a crazy race of overnight knitting. Here are some photos of the wake of destruction these socks left behind.