Monday, August 5, 2013

This is what it looks like when your evening doesn't go as planned...

...me, in my pajamas, with wet hair held in a messy bun by a hair fork and glasses perched on my nose, sitting despondently on the floor amongst a pile of yarn balls and half-finished socks in the living room, wishing that I had more wine, while Jane Austen's Persuasion plays in the background and I have no idea what is happening in the story.

How did this happen?

I had children. ;-)

Nah, seriously. The day started out well, with Henry and Anne both turning in good performances at Mass. I'd give Anne an A, Henry a B - (grade reduced by repeated instances of deliberately annoying touching of toddler and then *blowing on her hair*, "that's not touching!"). As long as I bring animal crackers for Anne all is well aside from all of the pew climbing, but really, I don't think we can reasonably expect that to be any different any time soon.

We got back to the house, had lunch, napped Anne, relaxed, did some chores around the house. All was well.

Then came the evening. Mike and Henry left for a baseball game they had tickets to. Anne and I settled in for some Dora watching and playing, and then mommy was planning for a Jane Austen night with wine and knitting post-bedtime. Sounds like a rock solid plan. I very rarely get the house and tv to myself, and I wanted to make the most of it.

As I was blowing Anne a kiss in her crib and closing her door for the night, the phone rings. It's Mike.

"Hank is sick. We're coming home."

Oh sigh.

By the time I grabbed my shower, they were pulling in the driveway. Hank comes limping in with a stomachache, and I fussed over him for a bit. We got him settled, and I went downstairs still determined to get my Jane Austen night started. Mike was down there, looking sour. :) It hadn't exactly been a fun start to the evening for him, either.

He poured me a glass of wine and put my movie in for me (he's such a thoughtful hubby) but retired to bed to recuperate and read. I happily settled in with my knitting and my wine.

I was finishing up a sock for Henry as I watched. I haven't read Persuasion, but I was confident that I'd be able to follow the story anyway. And I probably would have, had I actually been able to concentrate. We had a couple of interruptions, all very sweet, by Mike letting me know how Henry was faring upstairs. That was fine, of course, but at the same time I was having a yarn crisis: Sock #1 was finished, and it was perfect. but it's a sock, and so you know, you do need TWO of them, and my yarn supply was *clearly* over halfway extinguished. Hope does spring eternal, so I weighed it. Yep. Well under 25 grams left from a 50 gram supply.

*long suffering sigh*

Therein started an internal debate as to whether I should place another yarn order for more of this specific yarn when I just placed an order on Friday (that did not include more of this sock yarn). To get free shipping, you have to spend $50, and they still have some of that nice worsted weight wool on sale...

Ten minutes later I realize that the movie plot is getting away from me. I refill my wine glass and resolve to do better. I still don't have a solution for sock #2 in Henry's pair, but the first sock is perfect, and that's a victory. For the rest of the movie, I figure that I can work on the argyle sock for myself that I've been slaving over for at least 2 months. I procure said sock.

When is a good time to try on a complicated sock-in-progress? Good and gentle reader, I assure you that that time is decidedly NOT when you:

(a) are watching a movie that you are already having a difficult time following,

(b) are on your second glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and

(c)  are already feeling quite vulnerable from misjudging size and tension in a project that is still in plain view.

Do any of these things occur to your Catholic Librarian in the heat of the moment? No they do NOT, dear reader. I'm past the heel on a cuff-down sock and am working on the foot, so I push the sock to the cable of my long circular needle and slide my (allegedly dainty) foot through.

Well, I should say that I TRIED to slide my foot through. Argyle means that you are stranding multiple colors, and stranding means that you wind up with one heck of an inflexible fabric. I knew this, of course, but I am a loose knitter so I didn't think I would have any problems.

I was wrong.

It's not even *close*. My heel cannot in any way get near the heel of the sock. And by this, I mean that I took my foot out, took a deep breath, and then violently shoved it back in, while at the same time yanking on the back of the sock determined that it would fit in properly, sort of like Cinderella's stepsister if she had on cat pajamas, a librarian up-do and wire-rimmed glasses.

That turned out pretty much like you'd expect.

I resisted performing an act of terror against the hapless sock, but I did moan and groan about it enough that I completely lost my place in the movie. This is why you should never drink and knit.

I pissily got out the scraps of wool that I wanted to use to make Anne's fall cardigan and was determining which colors to use when Mike came down to check on me. This is when he found me in the state mentioned at the start of this post.

And so ends a sad sock saga. It happens in the life of all knitters, and it never gets easier, but you have to learn to accept it and deal with it.

R.I.P. Argyle Sock. I am not ripping you back because the thought of unraveling 3/4 of a sock worth of tightly stranded yarn makes me want to gouge my own eyeballs out. I am not finishing you, and then (even worse!) KNITTING A SECOND ONE OF YOU so that I can find another purpose for you other than being my sock, because well...I'm sorry to have to tell you this Argyle Sock, but I just don't love you enough. You only cost about $6 in yarn, and I'd rather have my sanity and waste your yarn than deal with the alternative. I have moved on to Anne's 2013 Fall Cardigan and I'm a lot happier. I hope that you can forgive me and stop hating me from your perch inside the bag stuffed in my closet. I know that it hurts right now, but I'm confident that we're both going to move past this. I may even try argyle again in the future.

DON'T GLARE AT ME LIKE THAT.

3 comments:

  1. Oh, I wish your Persuasion evening had gone as planned! In a way, it sort of appropriate for the story. ;) I just realized your daughter's name is Anne! Lovely. <3

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's so sad your Persuasion-watching was ruined. :( I have made that sock mistake so many times...

    ReplyDelete

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