If Friday was the day that the internet and I were at war, yesterday was the day that Koigu and I were at war. I think it’s pretty easy to tell from that statement that I ran out of yarn before I could finish the toe of my sock. Grrr.

Yesterday was a long, busy day. My friends Wes and Maggie moved into their new (first!) house yesterday, and I had agreed to help them load up things and carry them. However, the prepared little person that I am, I brought along my sock just in case, and it turned out to be a good plan on my part, since the actual moving didn’t take all that long. Maggie was preparing a nice dinner for us, but since we finished moving all their stuff around lunchtime, we had lots of time to kill before we were going to meet up again in the evening. So I sat and worked on my sock.

When I finished with the last pattern repeat on the foot, I glanced down at what yarn I had left, and I was feeling a little less than optimistic. Still, I was determined to at least try to make it work. As a failsafe, I wove a strand of yarn through the last round of stitches before I started the toe, just in case I had to rip it out and start over with another yarn.

A strand of yarn holding the last round of foot stitches in case I had to rip out the toe

Every so often, my friends would ask me how much I had left, and when I’d hold up the minuscule remnants of my skein, they’d laugh and tell me I was never going to make it. But what did they know? They don’t knit! They don’t know what’s possible! I could do it! I would make it work! I would have enough yarn to complete the blasted toe!

Really, it’s a good thing I put in that failsafe…

Really, it was a good thing I put in that failsafe, because I got to the point where I had only 4 rounds left to go (four bloody rounds), and I was left with about 8″ of yarn. I finally accepted my fate, admitted defeat, and ripped out the toe. Luckily I had some green Koigu leftover from a pair of socks I knit years and years ago, and while it’s not the most perfect match in the world, it’s close enough to work, and besides, I was in a pinch. So I worked the toe in this alternate yarn, and it all worked out okay in the end.

Aurelia Socks #2: one down, one to go

The thing is, I had done the math when I wrote the pattern, and math doesn’t lie. I knew I’d need about 200-210 yds to complete one sock given the length of the leg… And yet, I continued to tell myself that there was some fudge room. The 200-yd limit was a rough estimate, and I knew it was a tad on the high side. 175 yds is close to 200 yds. However, I learned the hard way, close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades, as the old saying goes. It does not count in sock-knitting. So of course now I have to go add some notes to the pattern. Fun fun. Oh well, live and learn, right?