Fiber Raven Soiree

The Story of the Bearfoot Sock

One day, many many weeks ago, Madame Glitchbane decided she would knit a sock. This was not an ordinary sock. Oh no! This was a special mohair and wool Bearfoot sock. She would stroke the beautiful Bearfoot yarn lovingly and dream of the day when it would become a wonderful sock.

But! She thought... she would not make just one Bearfoot sock. Oh no! She had two feet like everyone but Cravenella Periwinkle. She would make two socks, one for each foot.

She planned carefully. She opened up the Storybook Socks book, which Priscilla Gibson-Roberts called "Simple Socks Plain & Fancy" and studied it carefully. She looked at all the pictures and smiled at the funny drawings of socks. She read all the words, even the hard ones, and was finally ready to begin.

Madame found a tape measure and looked at her long narrow feet. She wished she had short, narrow feet, for then a sock would not have to be as big. She sighed, and began to measure. The circumference (my! that was a big word!) of the ball of her foot was precisely 8 inches. She wrote that carefully in her little red notebook. The circumference of her ankle was exactly 8 inches. She wrote that down, too.

The storybook said that the length of the sock should be one inch less than C, the circumference of the foot. That would be 7 inches. She wrote that down, too.

Next, she looked at the charts in the storybook. They were for average sizes, and listed stitch counts for several gauges of knitting. Madame thought about this carefully. "I am not above average," she said to herself. "I will use these charts."

But first, she needed to know her gauge. She looked at the ball band of the bearfoot sock yarn. "7 stitches per inch" it said. She knew she always achieved the stated gauge, and so she found the chart where C = 8" and was delighted that it was only a women's medium, not a large or extra large as she had expected! Looking across to the number of caston stitches, she found the number 56. Again, this was good news, for she had feared that she would be casting on 72 or even 80!

A toe-up sock seemed just the thing to knit, so Madame chose to knit a toe-up sock with a short-row heel and a 2x2 ribbing. She shivered in anticipation. This was going to be fun!

Knit, knit, knit. The toe was done, and it fit!
Knit, knit, knit. The foot was done, and it fit!
Knit, knit, knit. The heel was done, and it fit!
Knit, knit, knit, knit, knit. The top was done...
Graft off, graft off, graft off. The sock was done and.....

it didn't fit. But it was beautiful. Madame cried. What went wrong?

The heel was beautiful. She loved the way the striping came out on the short row shaping.

The top was beautiful. She loved the way the grafting let the top stretch as wide as necessary.

She checked her gauge again. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7.....8.....9. 9 stitches per inch. Nine stitches per inch??

She looked at the chart again. 72 caston stitches???

She measured her foot from ankle to toe. 8 inches??? Clearly she was a mutant. Her L was the same as her C, not one inch less as it was supposed to be. With her C, she was a medium, with her L she was an extra-large.

She looked at the beautiful but stillborn sock sadly, folded it carefully and buried it away.

The moral of the story is: "Sometimes your L isn't less than your C", or, "Normal is a myth that nobody is" or maybe just "Swatch and it might fit."

The End

p.s. Play Sock Lotto! I can't bear (pun intended) to reknit this sock. Do you want this yarn and sock? If so, send me an essay of 250 or more words on why you think you should have it and what you will do with it. I must receive more than five essays. I will judge the essays, declare a winner, and send the yarn and sock to the winner. Deadline to send essay will be Sunday, June 20.

Sherlock says, "the sock doesn't fit? Leaping Lizards!!"

Posted by Sheila at June 7, 2004 07:13 AM | TrackBack