Lesson for today: read the pattern and pay attention!

Two weeks into September and I haven't yet shown off my August work. Tim and I had agreed to do socks and I chose Bloomin' by Jeannie Cartmel (link goes to Ravelry pattern page). So while socks aren't something I would consider challenging normally, it seems I inadvertently selected a pattern that was a challenge for me.

I started out simply enough. Two at a time on one long circular needle. Most of my sock knitting has been on double pointed needles but I've recently done a few pairs simultaneously. But what I did not for see was each sock starts out with a different chart (in order to have a mirrored design). So I was constantly flipping back and forth from chart to chart. This lead to me forgetting to actually read the darn pattern. The design on the top of the foot is a stem with leaves in stockinette on a reverse stockinette background. The bottom of the foot should be knit in stockinette. Did I do that? Heck no, I just assumed that I should purl my way around the sock. *headdesk* About the time I was approaching the heel, I discovered my error.

Yeah, so I was a bit upset with myself because of course the socks were taking a great deal of time to complete with all that purling. So for the heel and the rest of the sock, I decided to flip the back to stockinette. Also the circular needle slows me down so starting with the heel I slid one sock onto dpns to finish it and then finished the other. Overall, they look lovely. Although when I was blocking them, I thought that I had made another huge error. Take a look at the cuffs of the socks in the finished photo. They don't quite look like each other, do they? But do you see what I didn't see until I took them off the blockers?

Yeah, one is inside out. I must have forgotten to flip it when weaving in ends. Doh!