Sock(s)!

So I had this little project bag with a half-finished pair of socks in it. The other day I finally decided to open it up and finish them, since I remembered being almost done.

I opened the bag to find I’d only done ONE sock. Ugh. That one was done except for the toe, though, so I finished it and started on the 2nd sock. And then I started thinking, “Hey, there doesn’t seem to be enough yarn left here for a 2nd sock.” But I shrugged it off, because I’m always amazed by how far sock yarn can go. Plus, I was having fun. I’d forgotten how addicting just knitting plain old socks can be. (This is not necessarily counting the part where I unconsciously switched directions and ended up having to tink back several rows of 2×2 ribbing.)

But the small amount of yarn left kept bugging me. I weighed it all together – the 1st sock was 30 g, leaving 20 g for the 2nd, which obviously wouldn’t work. Is that why I’d stopped before finishing the 1st sock, lo those many moons ago? Where was the other 50 g ball, since I definitely remembered buying 2? When had I last worked on this project, anyway? It couldn’t have been a whole YEAR… could it?

For my first 2 pairs of “real” socks (knit, not crocheted, and with sock yarn instead of worsted, and no of course crocheted socks are real socks too, I’ve just decided that I prefer mine knit, YMMV) I had used some yarn I’d bought previously which hadn’t worked AT ALL for the intended project, and which had ugly pooling to boot. Think mottled tan and blue leopard print. But I’d made good use of it by squeezing not one, but TWO pairs of wearable learning-experience socks out of it. Had I done the same here? That didn’t seem likely, especially since the one finished sock had a nice longish leg and nice tight gauge, unlike the blue leopard socks which were more like ankle socks with a loose gauge to use up less yarn. Gah, what the hell HAD I been thinking, anyway?

Tentatively, I dipped a toe into the stash. I have a big bin just for wool and wool blends that are sock or lace weight, or other weights that have less than one full ball left. Organization!

It wasn’t in there.

Oh well, I thought, it’ll turn up. Probably long after finishing the 2nd sock with some leftovers I’d found, a dark gray and a light gray that might just work… but without the red, I knew it really wouldn’t. But it wouldn’t be that big a deal, right, because the missing red stripes would be on the foot, where my shoes would cover them up anyway. Never mind that the leg part of my socks never gets much exposure anyway, since I tend to wear them with jeans. Let’s face it, my socks are for ME, not for looking fly for other people.

By the time I got to the heel flap, I couldn’t stand it any more. I dove into the stash, determined to find that 2nd ball of yarn in whatever form it might have taken – whether it be a pristine, center-pull ball straight from the store, an unholy mess of yarn barf, a neatly rolled regular ball, a partially worked experiment or swatch and OMG I THINK I KNOW WHERE IT IS BECAUSE I REMEMBER SWATCHING FOR IT FOR THAT SCARF OMG WHY DO I ONLY REMEMBER THIS NOW THAT I’VE GIVEN UP AND AM WRITING ABOUT IT!!! OF COURSE IT’S IN THE SWATCH BIN, THE ONLY ONE I DIDN’T CHECK OMG I FAIL SO HARD.

Ahem.

I didn’t find it. As noted above, I checked every single bin, basket, bag, and drawer (even some that had no business having yarn in them at all – see, I am capable of SOME discipline in that regard). I didn’t find it anywhere.

I did, however, find the other sock.

\o/