It's Fraining

Greetings from sunny warm lovely Chicago. It's been fraining all day today. It's just warm enough for rain to form instead of snow, but at soon as the raindrop hits something it freezes. It makes for some lovely scenery. All of the tree branches are covered in an icy sheath, there are little icicles hanging off of my patio furniture. It really is lovely to look at from the comfort of my living room couch while I sip a big mug of steaming hot tea. Sadly, sitting on the couch sipping a mug of tea is not on the agenda for today. Sitting on the couch will not get the Christmas cards picked up from Walgreens. Sipping tea will not help the chuck roast that is at the grocery store move itself into my cast iron dutch oven, and viewing the scenery will not get Daughter to her after school activities on time. All of these things require that I go out and drive around in the frain. Not surprisingly, the ice that has completely coated all of our vegetation has also totally coated our slanted driveway. Just getting to the mailbox is a feat best attempted with ice skates today.

On the positive side, I did actually sit down and work on Bart 2 last night. The heel has been turned and the foot has been commenced. As I've mentioned, this sock is from Cat Bordhi's book New Pathways for Sock Knitters. The designs in this book are very cool, and I love the socks that I'm creating.I have just one teensy tiny issue with the way the book is laid out. I'm making Bartholomew's Tantalizing Socks, on pages 27-29. I've carefully followed all of the instructions on pages 27 & 28, right up to the part about the heel. I'm told that I should make a reinforced heel, directions for which can be found on page 124. I dutifully truck on over to page 124 (Master Reinforced Heel) and begin following along with Step 3 as instructed. My heel turns, and I move on to Step 4, which according to the book is "Same as for plain heel (page123)." I page back to 123 and start rearranging stitches as per the diagram. I then move on to Step 5: Work back of heel. I am cruising right along creating what is actually the bottom of the heel, feeling pretty good about myself because this is easy and doesn't require a lot in the "Paying Attention" department. After about 20 minutes I look at my first sock to make sure things look right. Stop that, I can hear you laughing you know.

Turns out that I was supposed to go back to page 124 when I got to Step 5. I now have one sock with a reinforced heel and one sock with a reinforced heel flap and a plain stockinette heel bottom. In case you ever need to know, unknitting 20 minutes worth of knitting takes about 60 minutes and 2 seriously dropped stitches. It also takes another 20 minutes to knit back to where you were when you found out you're an idiot, again. I'm sure I'm the only one who would make such a bonehead play, but should you ever be making a reinforced heel from Cat's book, be aware of your Steps and pages.