The story of the engagement socks

When I lived in Canada two years ago I started knitting Nancy Bush's Conwy socks from some lovely Fleece Artist yarn. I managed to knit one of these socks before I left Canada and this project came with me on my Canada to Mexico bike ride. I thought for sure that I would be able to finish them on the 6-week trip. I imagined I would have lots of spare time by the campfire in the evenings but as it turns out there are a million and one chores to do each night when travelling by bike - daily handwashing of sweaty lycra and flouro, bike repairs, hunting and gathering food for that night and the next day, setting up tent, etc, etc). So the knitting travelled all that way with me with barely a stitch knitted and this is one of the more unusual ways something becomes a UFO, I guess! Another contributing factor as to how these gorgeous socks became relegated to UFO status was that that the first sock had turned out a bit too tight around the widest part of the foot (at the 90 degree bend on the front of your foot). I had wanted these socks to be for me, but this meant that actually they would become a present for a smaller friend and I think that made second-sock syndrome all the more difficult to fight, especially as this was the second pair of socks I'd made out of this yarn, and thus it was actually more like fourth-sock syndrome.

Anyway, I got the second (fourth) sock done and had decided that they would be an engagement present for N, who had small feet and who had commented on the lovely yarn. I finished them quickly and then held both socks up side-by-side and realised with horror that I had made a calamitous mistake - I'd knitted them on different size needles. I was aghast for a day or so, but I didn't frog. Instead, I talked to N, who is a knitter and who is staunchly anti-frog. We worked out a solution, based on the fact that N, like many people, actually has a half-size difference in the size of her left and right feet. So this pair of socks has an L sock and an R sock. The main difference when you looked at the socks was that one was taller up the leg than the other by about a centimetre. So I undid the cast on and picked up stitches on the top and knitted an extra centimetre of rib. It's a bit messy when you look closely and the cast off doesn' t look the same as the cast on on the other sock, but the mottled shade of the yarn is very forgiving and N seems very happy with her engagement socks with a story!