One Ugly Sock

Many moons ago, I bought the book Op Art Socks, by Stephanie van der Linden.  It is an awesome book with some really unique patterns.  I joined a group that was formed to have knitalongs and knit through the whole book- I fell out rather early on because I could not finish the sock of that month on time.  Recently I decided to jump back in, because they were knitting some socks that interested me.  The main one, was Yaacov, which is the beautiful sock on the cover of the book.

Yaacov calls for using two skeins of the same striping yarn, and starting them at different points in the color progression.  I ordered a couple of skeins for that purpose, but when I cast on using those, it turned out the stripes in that yarn were too short for the pattern.  So I decided to try using two different skeins of striping yarn I had together.

Here is the cast on photo:

When I posted this photo before, I said it was a lot like clown barf, but I was ok with that.  I think at the time I was thinking it was cute in an "it's so ugly it's cute" kind of way.  But the more I knit, the more I started to think it was just ugly.  I did finish the first sock, and that made it clear this pair of socks was doomed- too tight!  I want to be clear, that I think the pattern is beautiful, and my problems were all operator errors!

I decided there was no way I was finishing these socks.  My lonely orphan sock sat in my knitting bag making me feel very bad, and I also occasionally thought about knitting the second sock.  Then this morning I got the idea- I would make the sock into a monster.

I cut the sock and sewed next to the cut to keep the sock from unraveling.

I made the toe and most of the foot into the main monster body/head.  I made the leg of the sock into the monster's legs.  For his arms I used the heel of the sock.  I think it turned out really cute!

Linking up to Patchwork Times for on the needles Friday!