A Knitter's Nightmare

Several nights ago I was asleep (it could have been an afternoon nap, who can remember at this point, really?) and had the following dream. No, it was a nightmare.

Cristi and I were hanging out - as we often do - knitting and talking about life in general and knitting, but I am not sure where we were. The space was smallish, but comfortable. Not at all cramped. A nice place to knit, but it was not my place or her's. Not Panera. I was wearing my Embossed Leaves socks from IK (hell if I remember what issue at the moment - they are in Favorite Socks). These socks are done in a pink self striping Trekking and I love the color. Of course, I love pink, so what is not to love about these socks.

So, we are talking about knitting and the subject of socks came up. We were discussing toe up vs. cuff down and extolling the virtues of the toe up sock. I am currently in love with toe up and short row heels (the short row heel fits my stupidly shaped foot better IMO!). The embossed leaves are neither toe up or short row heeled. But the Embossed Leaves sock is currently Cristi's favorite sock to knit and I think she has 3 pairs done. So discussing them is not something we don't do. In fact it is something we discussed AFTER I had this dream - though I didn't tell her about it at the time.

As we discuss the sock, I take my foot out of my shoe to show the full sock. Now, I love shoes. Socks are a necessity for 1) shoe comfort and 2) foot warmth. I knit them because I love to knit but I would be happy with store bought socks really. I mentioned that stupidly shapped foot? Well, gusset heels are baggy on my foot and no matter what I do, they remain so. I have shortened them and everything, but I just love to knit. So I knit myself pretty socks. Before I started knitting socks, I must say that I did have a giant love of "different" socks anyway. Every pair of "work socks" I own are weird. I have argyle knee highs and pinstripped and all sorts of different socks. I haven't had much occassion for wearing my hand knit socks to work as I tend to knit bright pink socks - but whatever.

Out my foot comes from my shoe - which shoe I can't remember even though I have the PERFECT pair of show off your hand knit socks shoes - I am pretty sure it wasn't those shoes. To my absolute horror there is a hole in the toe of my sock. A HOLE! and not because I have worn it out, but because the entire kitchener stitch graft has come apart. THE WHOLE THING!

Well, let me tell you that my dream-self gasped. Looked horrified that my toes wer hanging out for a moment and not freshly pedicured. Then realized that these were MY HAND KNIT SOCKS! and the toe has FAILED! The look of horror turned to shame. Shame that I was such a poor knitter that my grafted toe didn't stay grafted. In my dream, Cristi and other knitter's who are a blur (because we were not alone) mocked my inability to kitchener stitch properly. I think I vowed to never ever ever knit anything other than toe up again.

I woke up in a cold sweat. I got up immediately and checked my socks to make sure there were no holes in the toes (they don't).

And that is why my Embossed Leaves socks are now sitting in my living room under the coffee table and not in the sock drawer. They are being watched carefully for signs of failure.