Sometimes it just makes you scratch your head

They call it a Chinese Fire Drill. Many of us have been in on such nutty capers at some point, usually back in the college days. The CFD falls into the same category as swallowing gold fish or cramming 50 bodies into a VW Beetle. Just to refresh, here's how it's done: the car pulls up to a stop sign or stops at a red light. The occupants (including the driver) pile out of the car, run around the vehicle as fast as possible and return to the seats they had filled before. It's nonsense, really. There's no purpose to it, other than to do it. The other day, we came across an interesting pattern at the shop. Someone had downloaded the thing from the net: a sock pattern. The pattern's owner had read through the instructions and wanted me to see whether it seemed kosher. Here lately, I'm starting to wonder whether pattern writers sit around a huge conference table somewhere, attempting to out-pattern each other. The one with most incomprehensible, vague, and ambiguous knitting instructions at the end of the day wins the challenge. Meanwhile we're left sitting in our knitting chairs reading something a bit less comprehensible than ancient Sumarian, yarn neatly in a ball, needles empty, our cat yawning at our feet waiting for the fiber action to commense. Come on folks, it's a pair of socks. Navel gazing. Seriously? The socks were made on 3 needles, 64 stitches total. Personally, I'd have opted for 4 needles, 16 stitches on each needle. This nifty pattern requested three: 1 with 16, the 2nd with 32 and the third with 16. You can just about imagine what sort of whackomatic angles that stitch distribution might produce. At any rate, the pattern master had the knitter boogying along down the leg to the heel flap enjoying the cramped comfort of an obtuse isosceles triangle. 16, 32, 16 for however many inches. The designer had envisioned the heel flap coming up from 32 stitches. That's fine, right? After all, the knitting was going on in the round (i.e. circle: no ending, no beginning), and there was already a needle with 32 stitches. So, just knit on over to the 32 stitch needle and make a spiffy heel flap, yes? No. Now, here comes the Chinese Fire Drill: the pattern instructed to work the 16 stitches of needle one, then turn, work the 16 stitches back, then work the stitches from the 3rd needle onto the first. Finally, with the free needle, we were commanded carefully to transfer 16 stitches from the original needle with 32 (the second needle) stitches in order to produce -- yes -- two needles with 16 stitches each. You've just experienced what it's like to be in the car behind the one in line at the intersection as its doors swing open, 4 goofs pile out, run a complete circle, then re-board, just in time to pop the clutch and be on their way. It's funny when we come across patterns like this, unless we're a relatively new knitter and are turned off by something that seems so terrifically complicated, but really isn't. Pattern reading often takes a bit of puzzling out if things seem vague. This is my suggestion: envision what it is that the pattern wants you to do. Figure out the knitting landscape. And don't second guess your gut feeling. If you think something might be easier to do another way, try doing it another way. The pattern is not a legal document. We can break those rules if they need to be broken. Just because someone in the car suggests a CFD at Kaliste Saloom and Ambassador, doesn't mean that you really need to do that. Experiment if things gets fuzzy. What's the worst that can happen? After seeing the Fire Drill sock pattern, I offer this great scarf pattern that you'll never finish. It's the ultimate navel gazer scarf. It's harder than anything you'll ever do, and you'll be guaranteed never to reach the end:

CO 25 Row 1: Sl 25 turn. Row 2: Rep Row 1. These two rows complete pattern. Continue in pattern until work measures 60" from cast-on edge. BO in pattern, fringe ends if desired.