Aaarrrgghhhhh!!!!

Ok - so I have this lovely yarn that I've been wanting to knit for a long time. And I have this great book that I've been wanting to make some socks from for a long time. So I knit up a lovely swatch - a big one to make sure that when my guage changes as I relax my knitting, I'll end up with the correct guage. And after much knitting of said swatch, I have a steady guage that I'm happy with. Stage one complete.

So we get out the book (Sensational Socks by Charlene Schurch), and find a sock pattern that will work with this guage and pick out a stitch pattern. Stage two complete.

Time to cast on! Which I do, and begin knitting. Knit about an inch and think "Hmm? Is this looking too large?" Decide to continue on because when I check, guage is still spot on. Continue (on two socks, mind you) for another inch. Guage is still good and maybe it's just them being flat. Try them on and they don't seem to be too big - hard to tell tho with them being so short. Keep knitting. Off into meditation mode and when I look up I have several more inches done. The pattern is lovely and the knitting is easy and fun.

Check guage and try them on. Guage is perfect, but the stupid socks are gigantic. Ripped them out and rewound the balls . . . . . Went back to stage one and reknit the guage swatch (came up with the same guage) but picking a different sock pattern and a different stitch pattern. Will let you know what I start doing. Tempted to dump the yarn and pick a different yarn.

Also found a pattern to make for me using the Elan Yarn that Mom sent.

Umm, I just discovered that there are a metric TON of corrections for this book!!! Go to this page http://www.martingale-pub.com/store/pages.php?pID=56&CDpath=2 before you try to knit anything from this book. I haven't looked to see what page the pattern I was trying to knit was on, so I don't know what effect this had on my mess, but next time I'll be more careful!!!