From Simplicity To Obscenity...And Beyond

July 12th, just after finishing my mate-less flat sock, I started a sock in the round. The pattern, ironically called Simplicity, is from The Electic Sole by Janel Laidman. It is my first sock in the round, and my first time trying to follow a chart.

In the week that followed, I started and re-started the Simplicity pattern eighteen times. Yes, one-eight - that eighteen.
Knit, rip.
Knit, knit, rip, rip.
Knit, knit, knit...well, you get the idea. OH, and swear. Knit, rip, and swear. I laid down a blue streak of curse words that Ralphie from A Christmas Story could stand back and admire. Then I'd cast on again and try it all over.


This was as far as I ever got before taking it back down to a tightly-wound ball of yarn. There's about 1.5" here. As I removed the needles and pulled the stitches out, it seemed as if I was unraveling my grip on reality.

Then, like Moses in the desert, or like a hillbilly thirty minutes before he calls the National Enquirer, I was visited. It seemed a bright light had entered my living room, and it spoke to me. It said, "I am the Angel of Psychosis. I have been sent down with a message from the gods of Sarcasm and Incompetence. They say, 'Look at that sock. That does NOT look like the picture.'" And as quickly as he appeared, the Angel of Psychosis was gone.

It turned out that the gods of Sarcasm and Incompetence were right, as gods so often are. I looked at the picture, I looked at the chart, and it all became clear to me. A knitting ephiphany, or a knit-piphany, if you will.


And to prove the veracity of my far-fetched tale, I present to you the Obscenity Socks (or one of them). I've gotten through the ankle chart, turned the heel, and am progressing through the foot. I have stopped swearing and ripping, which is a relief because, after all, I'm knitting to relax a bit for heaven's sake.