I am knitting socks for each niece and nephew in the family for next Christmas.  Yes, I am getting started BEFORE this Christmas.  Because I'm smart, committed, and determined.  Because this feeds my self fashioning Molly Weasley fantasies.  And because I am finally accepting an important truth.  Knitting, as all art, is bound in part by the quality of materials invested.  

I'm very frugal and open minded.  I look for the best cheapest yarn and I can find (in thrift shops, Walmart, Hobby Lobby, etc.)  And I feel artistry should transcend or transfigure this best cheapest yarn into beautiful serviceable goods.  Sometimes that happens, or near enough.

Earlier in the month I accidentally on purpose ended up in my favorite local yarn shop.  Where, on a whim, I purchased a $26 ball of yarn.  Absurd!  Hello!  $26 yarn?  Well guess what?  Its worth it.  I'll skip the many reasons.  Trust me or suit yourself, but quality materials in the right hands improve results.   My only problem is justifying such an expensive hobby:  make it practical.  $26 is a very reasonable price for a gift.  Voila.  I can knit my fill with luxury yarns and finish my Christmas shopping for next year all in one whack.  At the same time I am supporting small local designers of yarns and small local merchants.  (Fight the power!)  Its all good.

Its morning.  I've fed all the people who are awake.  I've cleaned chicken boxes, collected 9 eggs, tidied the kitchen, made a cup of hot tea.  I'm on the couch with my luxury yarn, "2-at-a-time Socks" by Melissa Morgan-Oaks, and the "Be Mine" pattern page 49.   All is calm.  All is bright.  The pattern is difficult enough to engage my full attention, easy enough to be relaxed about it.   I'm two inches of fingering weight yarn into two socks - four inches of knitting, on line 9 of the stitch guide.

Then I encounter a mistake in the pattern.  I'm knitting with $26 wool, here.  There can be no mistakes.  I am using a pattern.  I've already invested a fair amount of time.  I'm following instructions!  I am doing it all right but its coming out wrong!  There should be a word for the kind of wrong born of doing it right.  Which happens in life more often than one might expect.  Whatever the word, it is often necessary to leave the directions, break the rules, and go rogue (defined by many as wrong) in order to be right.