One of These Things is Not Like the Other

My Christmas knitting is humming right along, even though I keep adding to it. I finished the Who? hats for the girls (6hats) and am making 2x2 ribbed hats for the boys (3 hats). There is a special hat for the littlest boy which I think we may be able to keep on his head (he has a definite hat bias) but I haven't received the yarn yet, so that may be an after Christmas gift.

I was knitting on the plain socks for DD#1 in my time spent waiting for the littlest schoolgirl. One was finished and sized when we were in WV, the other one just gets worked on periodically. I reached the heel, which was a dark gray patch of yarn when I came upon a knot in the yarn. I haven't made a whole lot of socks, but I have never had a ball of sock yarn with a knot. I spliced it together and continued knitting the foot until I got to a point where I needed to measure against the other sock for length.Notice anything? Yup! My self striping sock yarn was not striping right. I have been very successful at making identical rather than fraternal twins out of my other sock yarn and was not going fail on this one. I pulled out lengths of yarn, vainly trying to find the right stripping pattern. After much thought and deliberation it became clear. When the ball was knotted together they had put the new yarn on backwards, the opposite stripping pattern.

I gave it a little more thought. Should I rewind the ball? Throw them in the garbage? Call the company and make them knit me a new sock?

I finally ripped it back to the gray heel and took the yarn from the OUTSIDE of the ball, which matched up perfectly.

Just have to graft the toe and these can go in the Christmas box.