Columbine Peaks

Since she now has them, I can finally write about the Columbine Peaks I've been doing for Pen. It's a pattern from Cat Bordhi's book Socks Soar. Although I think the final outcome is pretty, I was not happy with the pattern. I guess it's OK if you know what you are doing, or don't care if it doesn't turn out exactly the way she intended, but the pattern itself lacks clarity. Of course, so have all the others I've done from that book, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. One thing I will say for it, once you've gone through it all, you've gained a lot of experience you might not have had you not been through the mistakes. First of which is trust your instincts when you think "this isn't quite right". Stop knitting and think about it before continuing. Trust me, it's worth it.

Having said that, I think and hope Pen is quite happy with them, so that's all that really counts Pics on Ravelry. I wanted to go for something other than my prerequisite Phone Socks, which are comfy, but plain. I tried several different things first. One of which was the jaywalkers, which didn't turn out because the yarn is too thin. Then I tried to do swirly ribbing, which was actually quite good, until I tried them on. Unless Pen shrunk her foot several sizes, to like the size of a 6 year old, she'd never have gotten them on. swirly ribbing isn't as stretchy as normal ribbing and I couldn't even get the thing on over my heal, so that was out. I actually totally frogged those before remembering that I could have finished them and given them to Lisa for Christmas, which is a shame, but that's what you get for not thinking. Anyway, the Columbine Peaks was just what I was looking for; pretty without being too fussy. It also went well with that yarn, imho.

By the way Pen, have you played "spot the mistake yet"? There is one, or at least one, that I just couldn't bring myself to go back and fix since it would have required me to redo the entire gusset. Why is it that I never notice my mistakes until it's waaaaay too late to go back and fix it? OK, too late for a sane person to go back and fix. I do try and repress my inner Hermione on things like this and console myself with knowing that I'm just never going to be perfect anyway. You've now got hard evidence of this, please don't use it against me :P