Three…

Three repeats to go, three repeats to go, ee aye add-ee-o, three repeats to go.

You’d think I would be pleased and excited, wouldn’t you? Certainly the sock makes much faster progress once the stitches are separated for the foot with a straight run at the patterned half.

So. There I was. Knitting along and admiring my handiwork  and thinking what gorgeous socks they are. “They’ll be even nicer when they are washed” I thought to myself “they’ll fluff up and fill out and soften once the oil is washed out of the yarn.

Indeed they will.

Only…

…that was the point at which I remembered that the yarn will also shrink.

I have been knitting these socks since December 1997. You’d no doubt think that, in all that time, I might have adapted the sizing of the sock at some point in order to allow for shrinkage, wouldn’t you?

Well, you’d be wrong.

However, not so very far WRONG as I have been.

Am I crying? Well, no, because all may not be lost. If the socks don’t fit ‘im at the end of this marathon, well, they may just fit me.

We may as well look on the bright side, as not.