More errata than you can shake a magic loop at

By some stroke of unbearable brilliance I managed to remember to check for pattern corrections BEFORE starting the arch-shaped socks (I never remember to do this). I clicked into the Vogue Knitting website, found the right issue, and lo and behold, errata!

"Replace entire pattern."

...oh! Okay.

After a frustrating adventure trying to find some stupid yarn I settled in with some friends on a lovely MLK day.

It starts with k1p1 ribbing in black (actually green, but looks black) (I'm not ruining their pattern -- you can find it here; it just doesn't have the colorwork graph). Then you switch to corrugated ribbing¹, but it said that you start with p1k1 which... didn't make sense. More than that, it said the purls were white which, stylistically, struck me as being... wrong. Since the white stands out wouldn't you want it as the knit stitches for smoothness? And what was with starting with purl instead of knit like last time?

So I checked the picture. I looked. I looked again. I looked closer. I confirmed my suspicions with Kate and Andrea. They agreed.

The socks in the magazine are different. Not only from the pattern, but from each other. You can almost almost see it in the pic I posted yesterday: on the left sock the top white stitches are purled. On the right they're knit.



I thought of Elizabeth Zimmerman and her instruction that patterns are not always set in stone (though I, personally, wouldn't want to fuss much with, say, a lace shawl), and decided I knew what I was doing and ribbing smibbing. After the first row I slipped the first stitch from the left needle to the right so I could still start with p1k1 as the pattern inexplicably recommends, and the white (or, in my case, purple) stitches got knit.

So neener neener neener!

I knit away, using magic loop for the first official time. It's okay, this magic looping, but I have to work harder to keep ladders from happening.



I could see how it'd be excellent for travel, though. I'm forever dropping dpns. With the basic socks I tend to knit dpns make it easier for me to know where I am in the pattern. Anyway!

When I got to, say, two inches of knitting I tried it on. A problem with the pattern is that there's one (oh yes one) size. And if you were to look at the model's calves and then look at my calves you might notice that mine are, say, bigger. Curvy! And what's a curvy girl to do?



Why, add to the stripey section! I added four stitches total which will maybe be enough? The two black stripes closest to the back of the sock were changed to 2 sts wide instead of 1. Here's how it went:



That's much easier than describing it. If I were interested in frogging I'd just add another black-and-white stripey to each side, but I wasn't. Interested.

On again! I followed the colorwork graph, feeling all clever-style, and then realized that I'd screwed up. I'd continued diamonding when I should've started wide-striping. I'd have to tink back. Oog.

After some Kate-and-Andrea consultations I decided that it was a Design Element, it was Inspiration, and I Liked It Better, which I actually do. Tink shmink.

THEN I got to the calf decreases and realized it doesn't tell you if the decreases are done in black or white. Turns out it's black. I'm not sure if I agree with that, but it's what I'm working with, so that's the way it'll be. Unless I really do frog and do it all from scratch, knowing what I know now. But considering all the problems it might be better just to finish, THEN decide if I want to start over (at which point the answer will be "HELL no! You think I'm crazy?!").

It's a sexy, sexy sock, though. Problems and all.

UPDATE:
I tried it on. It's too tight. Aw. Frog pond time.


¹ Corrugated ribbing is ribbing where knit stitches are one color and purls are another.