Adventures with Socks, Part One

No, gentle readers, "socks" is not a cat (or a chinchilla, although The Chief's first pet chinchilla was named Sock, as she was too small to make a coat out of...). "Socks", in this context, is an article of footwear I am attempting to knit. Attempting being the operative word, here.

Actually, I am attempting a sock. Just one. I probably don't have enough wool for two, and who am I kidding, this thing is not actually going to be wearable, so why on earth would I want two? I have some chai, some green wool (like I've ever worn green socks in my life), and a set of bamboo needles (because, you know, I'm a klutz, and bamboo sort of grips the wool so you don't have to be overly dextrous...that's the theory, anyway. We'll see if it holds up.). My process looks something like this...

1. According to the sock book, my knitted cast-on that my mother taught me over the phone back in August is neither flexible nor strong enough for socks. I realize with a sinking heart that I am going to have to attempt the finger gymnastics required for the "long-tail cast-on"...and I can't make head nor tail of the instructions in the sock book, so it's back to my beginner book to see if I can figure it out. I'm persistent, and I have chai, so it's only a matter of time. Really. (For those who do not knit, casting on is getting that first row of stitches onto the needle; there are a number of ways to do this, all of which, in my opinion, are not for the spatially challenged.)

2. My beginner book says nothing about this vaunted "long-tail cast-on", but does show a "slingshot" cast-on. Which looks like it involves as much finger gymnastics as the "long-tail cast-on", and might even be the same thing, but what do I know? I take a sip of chai and hope that they are the same thing. Any normal person would be able to tell, just by looking, if they were the same, but I am, as we have noted before, spatially challenged, and I will just have to close my eyes and...no, wait, closing my eyes is probably not going to work...I mutter a swift prayer to the Universe and begin.

3. Long pause and much inappropriate language.

4. I realize that this "long-tail cast-on" is just as complicated as it was the last twelve times I tried to do it. No matter which way I turn the book, it still involves me visualizing a two-dimensional drawing of fingers and yarn and somehow transforming this into a three-dimensional process. Translation: it ain't gonna happen.

5. My thirteen-year-old son hears me muttering dire imprecations under my breath. He sidles up to me and glances at the picture in the book for about three seconds (I swear, his eyes just sort of brushed over it), takes the needle and yarn out of my hand, and proceeds to cast on three stitches. He hands the needle back to me and says all innocently, "So what's the problem?"

6. I put away the knitting in disgust and decide that the only thing I'm likely to knit in the next twenty years is scarves. Lots of scarves.

7. After dinner I decide upon a new tactic. With coloured pencils I carefully colour the little strands of yarn in the picture, each one a different colour, so that I can see what, exactly, is going on in the picture.

8. I take a deep breath and try again. After a while, I begin muttering to myself again.

9. My son glances over at me. "You're holding the yarn wrong," he tells me. How he can tell this from six feet away, I have no idea. He comes over and loops the yarn around my fingers in the proper arrangement, then holds my hand and guides my needle up and down and in and out...and something clicks and I finally get it.

10. Moral: my son should be doing the knitting around here, not me.