Surprises Everywhere

Every year I plant a few bulbs or move a few things in my landscape from here to there in an ongoing effort to get it all just right. I move the peonies to one spot, I move the rosemary to another and I plant a few mystery bulbs along the way.

Some things, like my favorite bed of irises never move. They are perfect just as they are and I always know exactly what to expect when I see that area of the yard begin to come to life. In other areas, I find surprises. I just noticed these buds this morning on the way out of the house. I have no recollection at all of what they are but I'm sure that I'll love them because I chose to plant them in that spot. They'll be a pleasant surprise.

It's not just the landscape around the house that's surprising me lately. Sock Madness is a constant source of surprises for me and for the players. As I mentioned yesterday, we're down to the final four now and the sentiment that they all seem to share is surprise at making it this far. There have been injuries, illnesses, pattern mistakes (oops!), and countless froggings but, through it all, this bunch of knitters has helped each other through.

Sometimes I surprise myself. The obstacle that I ran into completing the Here There Be Dragons socks is a great example of this. The picture above is the finished product. I really do love them and I'm happy to share them. (They ought to be reaching their destination really soon.) You may recall that, as I prepared to send them to my pal last week, I noted an error in one sock. I had forgotten a repeat on the leg of it. My first thought was to frog the sock and re-do it but I really didn't want it to be too late and the rest of the sock looked great. I hated the thought of frogging it.

The next idea was to knit up another repeat and graft it to the rest of the sock. It seemed like a workable solution except that I never did a graft before - ever! My thought was that if the graft worked I'd go with it and if it didn't then I'd frog it and re-knit. The graft did work and I did send the socks out last Friday but it occurred to me that some of you may hear about this and be skeptical. I'd hate for anyone to think that I'd send off socks that were less than my best work so I took a few pictures before I sent them.

This pair of pictures shows the outside and inside of the socks. The graft line is definitely in these pictures. Can you see it? Can you tell which sock was grafted?

I think I remember which is which but I'm not sure anymore. After blocking, I don't think that the graft line is obvious at all. If it had been then I wouldn't have sent them. I was very careful about weaving in the ends too so I think that a person woould have to really examine these socks to see where the error was.

I'd never send something that I wouldn't be proud to wear myself and I have to say that i was still sad to send these away. I'd love to have them on my feet.