Lovely Lenore

Let me introduce you to Lenore. My pair of Lenores are my favourite socks ever. I would wear these socks everyday if I could. But that would be a little gross for both the socks and my feet. So I don't. But I do wear them, and the other day and it struck me that at some point Lenore would get old and tired and wear out. That even though I could darn them, which I will do, I will eventually not have them anymore. This is unacceptable, and I realized that the best way to extend the life of my beloved socks was to have more than one pair.

So off to the stash I went.  Unsurprisingly, a skein of yarn did throw itself at me shouting "Here I am! I going to be the pair of Lenores you seek." and I knew it was right, and that it would make a pair of these socks perfectly. Out came the ball winder and swift and pattern. Voila, I was ready to go.

And here's where the problems begin. When these socks are on my feet I love them. When they are on the needles? The bane of my existence. Just to make it perfectly clear, it is not the pattern. The Yarn Harlot was able to produce a lovely, easy to read document that will in fact (when followed correctly) produce a wonderful pair of socks. Apparently I just became partly brain dead when it comes to making these socks. My first pair took me over a year and on at least one occasion had me looking at my husband and saying "I do actually know how to knit, right?" before flinging the socks across the room and bursting into tears. And here's why:

Mistakes I have made while knitting these socks:

• cast on the wrong size.
• cast on the right size with the wrong needles. 
• cast on the right size with the right needles and then changed to the wrong size half way through the lace pattern.
• completely changing  the lace pattern, making up new one as I went along.
• skipped entire sections of the lace pattern resulting in a completely incorrect sock.

A keen knitter will note that all of these things have happened before working on the actual leg.  But all of these things happened with the first pair.  And really, I have many more knitting projects under my belt and I shouldn't have the same problems again, right? WRONG!  I have made all the same mistakes again and have probably come up with a few new ones.  Frustrating would not even begin to describe the knitting process behind making these socks.  But I am stubborn and after three false starts, this is where I am in my second pair.

But, they are on the needles and hopefully they will go much better this time around.  And the knowledge that I will love them when they are finished is what's keeping me going.
I have no idea why this pattern causes me such grief.  I can do everything that it calls for and in a different pattern I wouldn't have the same problems.  So my goal is to take less then a year to make this pair.  And to not throw them across the room while I do so.

Am I the only one?  Does anyone else have a pattern that they love to hate while knitting, but knit anyway because the finished work is just so satisfying?