Jaywalkers - complete!!

Yep, that's right - I finished my Jaywalkers. Did up the kitchenering and wove in my ends just a couple hours before I cast on for the Olympics. I was pretty darn pleased, really - I put them right on and wore them during my opening ceremonies knitting.

Now I know, you're thinking, "Waitaminnit, didn't she give up on her Kool-aid Jaywalker and start up some new ones?" Yep, you're absolutely right, I did.

But that was before I'd realized that if I wanted to finish my Jaywalkers in time for the end of the KAL, I was going to have to knit a complete pair of socks by Feb 10th, in order to make room for the Olympics. It was also before I got down to the heel flap on the new stripey Jaywalkers and discovered (you can guess already, can't you?) that they didn't fit.

So, that was when I went, "You know... I like the Kool-aid Jaywalker. It does, technically, fit, though I could wish the stitches didn't spread so much when I put it on, because it diminishes the coolness of the pooling. But that half a heel flap is awesome, and I've stared at it for close to a month now and still can't bring myself to frog it, so maybe I should just carry on as I've begun."

So that's what I did. I cast on and started the ribbing.

Oh, but that wily Jaywalker, it had to have one last laugh at my expense. Because see, I'd cast on and gotten going on the ribbing, and man... it was taking forever. Now mind you, that first inch of ribbing on a sock always seems to take forever to me. I don't know what it is, but somehow I immediately enter Stephanie's Knitting Black Hole and just have to grit my teeth and slog through until finally, somehow, I manage to escape. (It should also be noted that, if one were to go through and measure the top ribbing on all of the socks I've knitted so far, the smart money would go on the side of "not quite an inch of ribbing" rather than "a bit more than an inch of ribbing". Just sayin'.)

But even so, knowing that that first inch of ribbing is always hellish for me, this still was taking an awfully long time. And yet I persevered, dreaming that perhaps I'd be able to wear my nifty Kool-aid Jaywalkers during the Olympic opening ceremonies (drat, I've already given away the ending...). Finally, after staying up until Oh-God-Thirty one night with Caz, having intended to watch one episode of Buffy and instead watching, um... the whole disc... I finished the ribbing. Oh the glee! The glee! I was so happy! And so I decided, to celebrate, I would knit one last round - that first round of the pattern which is actually just a knit round.

Now, it should be noted that when I start up a sock or really any project on dpns, I prefer to use the lowest number of dpns I can get away with - I just find it more manageable to do it that way, at least until there's sufficient fabric to kind of hold it all together. So even though the pattern calls for using five dpns, I decided to just use four while I did the cuff.

So doing the first round of the pattern stitch served two purposes - it was not only celebratory, but it was also going to be my chance to get the stitches shifted around onto the proper number of needles. So I'm knitting along, reducing the number of stitches on each needle to 19. So I put 19 sts on the first needle, 19 on the second, 19 on the third and... waitaminnit. There's a lot more than 19 sts left here. WTF is going on?!?

I count out the stitches and discover that instead of casting on 76 sts, I've cast on 96 sts! 96! Ninety! Six! Gnnnggg!

See, you can see for yourself here:



The sock on the left is made with 76 sts (I quadruple-checked, so I'm sure that's right). The inch of ribbing on the right? 96 sts.

So I frog and stuff it aside for a day or two until I can cool down and look at it again without wanting to throw it on the ground and stomp on it. Finally managed that last Saturday, cast on, and somehow managed to churn out a whole sock by Friday, which for me is rather an accomplishment. Though um... I do think it was helped along by my spending the whole of Sunday afternoon sitting in my recliner under a quilt knitting while I finished recuperating from a really vile stomach flu.

(And because it's just not a knitting blog until I've included a cute picture of my pet with my knitting, this is my sweet Converse (yes, I did name her after a shoe, but it's not my fault - when she came to us her name was Teva!), napping next to Jaywalker: The Final Iteration.)



So here, at looooong last, are my completed Jaywalkers! Yay!


And check out those heel flaps - it would figure that they would be the parts with the funkiest pooling, eh?


And finally, an action shot. (No, I don't plan on wearing these socks out in public with blue plaid pajama pants - I may be oblivious, but I'm not that oblivious.)