Throwback Thursday: The Stocking That Wasn't

Socks. I've knit quite a few socks now, but one of my first experiences was doing a stocking for Christmas. I figured that doing what basically amounted to a large sock would be helpful in learning about sock construction. I was right in that sense. I did learn a lot with this project. But it did not turn into a useable stocking!

 

It does almost look a bit like the Grinch's stocking. So what went wrong?

After I turned the heel, I think I got mixed up over which way around I should go. I even think I may have somehow flipped the knitting inside out. I was working with DPNs which I wasn't very experienced with quite yet. After a few rounds, I noticed that something looked wrong. But instead of ripping back (because I didn't feel experienced enough to rip back to a certain place so felt that I would have had to rip back all the way to the beginning and didn't want to do that), I just figured out where I was supposed to be and kept going.

Then came time for the toe. Surely the pattern used a Kitchener graft, right? But apparently I must have either not done that--just decreasing until I had a couple of stitches or decreasing too much before the graft. I don't still have the stocking so I can't go check what actually happened.

The good news is that I tried the stocking again and the next time, I got a much more presentable and useable sock. Unfortunately, I didn't take a very good picture of it and I gave that one to a friend so can't take a better one. But even with the bad picture, surely the difference between the two is apparent.