Socks and Cables

I disliked knitting cables. Not that I didn't know how to cross stitches with a cable needle, or twist 2 stitches without having to use an extra needle, but I had to always refer back to the explanation of the chart symbols to figure out which way the cable was to travel. Was it right or left? Did the stitch in front of me go to the back or up front.

I am a chart person, but a cable chart left me quaking in my boots or I should say Birkenstocks. Until the other day. The "Aha" moment finally arrived as I was drawing the two symbols and their explanations on the back of an envelope. Sort of a crib sheet to make it through the sock pattern. Up to that moment I had always concentrated on the little tail that was either up or down, in the right box or the left one. Never did I consider looking at the right or left leaning line which extended from one edge to the other of the box. Now if you give me a left or right leaning line in a chart, I know exactly which way the decrease leans, but the moment that little tail appeared I was helpless. The "Aha" moment came when I drew the symbols and finally realized just to ignore that little troublesome tail and concentrate on the diagonal line. And Voila! no more crib sheet. The knitting of that second sock went lickity split.

Of course all of this came at a price. I had found a sock on the needles, three quarter finished, but had forgotten I had already knit the first sock. And since I couldn't figure out where I had left off, I decided to just unravel the sock which I did post haste. Then I weighed the yarn and to my horror realized that the ball of yarn only weighed 50 grams instead of the 100 grams it should have. And wouldn't you know it, soon thereafter I found the first sock: knit, finished, yarn ends tucked away. Ah well the vagaries of not finishing what I had started. Serves me right.

The pattern is from Monika Eckert, a German designer whose designs I always find challenging. The name is Bad Toelz, a spa in Bavaria. Bavarian architecture is quite ornate much more so than in my old neck of the woods, the Black Forest. Yarn used was Plymouth Rockin' Sox and needles were 2.25 mm.

And now the picture show:

The colors are off quite a bit. Actually the yarn is green with blueish-purplish interspersed.

Knit on Merrily!