Two weeks ago my kid came home from college with a present for the family: a flu bug making its way through the student population.  I decided that I did NOT have a flu and I could NOT take time off work.  Which went quite well until Thursday, as I was taken to the doctors with a temperature of over a hundred, a throat that felt like I was swallowing hot razor blades, a cough that wouldn't stop and aches that felt like I had run a marathon.

I had a secondary infection and my hubby was instructed to keep me at home. away from any sewing machines or any other work and to be sure I got plenty of rest.  I was to take antibiotics and some cough syrup with plenty of warning stickers telling me not to operate any machinery, and a note from the doctor saying "especially big sewing machines"

Perfect I thought!  I can learn how to knit socks!  I've been wanting to learn how to knit socks for a while, but I always have trouble at the heel, it requires time and patience, something I am occasionally short on.  Because I am couch ridden, my fevered brain reasoned, I can knit for hours without anyone stopping me!  And knitting needles are not (usually) dangerous machines I can safely knit and not injure anyone too badly.

I found my sock yarn, purchased months before.  I found my double pointed needles, holding flags in a lego city!  I found the instruction book!  I cheerfully and feverishly began to knit.  My huuby made sure I took the pills and the cough medicine and my boys didn't complain as I watched CSI:Miami DVD's all weekend.

There's something about the instruction for short rows and fevers that don't quite mix.  Or something about me not bothering to read the instructions carefully.  Or perhaps it was a defect in my measuring.  No matter what the cause, I now have a single, rather odd, too short for my foot and three times too large for my ankles sock.  I am quite proud of this, for reasons I don't understand.  I am now less fevered and looking at the book, with the steps carefully checked off, including five too many short rows, and the page on toe shaping seemingly missed.  Here's a picture of my sock.  I don't know if I should take it apart and try again, or keep it as a reminder to A. don't knit while feverish. B. Don't knit while on narcotic cough medicine and C. Take two days off when a flu starts, or seven days when I have no choice.



My only comfort is that it is vaguely foot shaped, only for a person with a four inch long foot.