twitchyKnits

I have been attempting to design a pair of socks for a little while now. I have a gorgeous ball of orangey-yellow striped sock yarn. It’s very autumn-y and makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. The colors reminded me of Rapunzel’s hair, from the old story. Since I’ve been hopped up on cables since starting my mom’s sweater, I decided that a braided cable would look pretty on the foot and leg of the sock. Braids remind me of fall, for some reason. Something about the harvest, golden wheat.. I don’t know. Something.

I set about knitting the first sock, making it up as I went along. It went pretty well but I didn’t like how I’d done the toe, so I decided to frog it. That has since turned out to be a bad idea—I haven’t been able to properly restart the pattern since. Every time I cast on, something goes wrong. I twist the cables improperly, I miscount where the twist is supposed to go, on and on. My latest issue is that the cats have gnawed on the cable of my sock needles and now it catches on the yarn and drives me insane. I’ve tossed the whole thing into a corner until I have the money to put in an order to KnitPicks for more needles.

The whole thing has been very frustrating, but hasn’t turned me off designing completely. I doubt I’ll ever be one of those prolific designers who pops out new patterns all the time, but I do take pride in creating something that I thought of myself, rather than someone else’s idea.

At one point I wanted to make a little toy dragon and even had about half the body knitted up. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted it to look like, but the method I was using for the body required it to be stuffed as I went. The only thing I had for stuffing was old acrylic yarn and it was just too annoying to have that tail hanging out all the time. I could have cut it, but just in case I didn’t end up finishing I didn’t want to waste all that yarn but cutting it a bunch of times. That eventually got frogged, and I may try again but I’m not sure.

My latest idea is a pair of sock-yarn slippers. Not the giant felted ones that people make, but more like cute little ballerina slipper type things. I haven’t looked to see if anyone has made something like that (I’m sure they have) because I want to claim that I came up with it all on my own. I have the right yarn for it, just waiting on the needles (again).

It’s funny—I have the urge to work on so many things at once that I usually just end up taking a nap. That sounds like a good idea, actually…