Hate it...

I hate it when patterns aren't easily followable. I just finished a doily I had to read from the PICTURE to get, because the pattern wasn't for this specific doily... Now I'm fighting with socks, that are... *sigh*
First, the pattern was written to someone who knits very tight and I don't. So I had to adjust the pattern to my hand.
Then the ribbing... The pattern starts with K2P2 ribbing and then when the cables start, it turns upside down - P2, K2, P2, K6. It should start with K6.
Then comes the twist... "Knit two together, but leave them to left needle and then..." Really complicated and uncomprehensible... to me, that is. It seems to be quite comprehensible to others, who don't seem to have any problems at all with this pattern, and who look at me as if I was an idiot, but - ok, I'm an idiot, but I still don't get it! So I do normal, ordinary, easy 1B1 cables and I'm happy with my twists. This is the way my knitting guide tells me to do twists. And my twists look exactly like the twists in the pattern. So I think that explanation is just another way to confuse stupid little knitters like me.
Now, today I arrived to the heel... and as I had started as a good girl I am, with P2, K2, P2, I had to knit a half round after the ribbing to start twisting, and now I needed to knit a half round to start the heel... you see, the purls are to make nice borders to the top of the foot...
I did that. "knit 2 1/2 inches of heel and pick 18 stitches". Ok... sounds a lot, but, hey, the designer is always right. I tried to count how many rows of the original pattern the heel is - knit in some slipstitch pattern - to find out if it's 1 or 2 needles, but if one is to pick 18 stitches and edge stitches are all knit (yes, KNIT! Not purl, which would create a pretty and easy chain, but knits, which create an interesting twisted edge - at least as I do it) I think it's about the stitches of two needles, so that is what I do. Then I turn the heel with short rows and start gussets and...
You can see the results yourself.

THIS is what I end up ALWAYS with this kind of a heel...

The measure is in cm's, 10 cms is about 4 inches. And that is WAY TOO MUCH FOR A SOCK IN THIS STAGE... *sigh* *sigh* *deepsigh* I SHOULD frog it and start all over again and make the 1 needle heel and end up with a human heel instead of this monstruosity heel for giants... But I have been fighting with these damned socks for days now, and it shouldn't take this long to knit a simple (uhum) pair of socks. It shouldn't! I want my sock knitting points at knitwars!

So I knit bookmarks and try to calm down,
and I knit my horseshoe cardi, and that turns out beautifully :-)

And I suppose I ought to be happy... And I'm not. I so wish I could just take a sock pattern, yarn and needles and follow the pattern and end up with human size socks just as in the pictures that illustrate the patterns... *sigh*

So, I'm going to take another break and knit another bookmark and knit a couple more rows of my cardigan and a couple more rows of the socks (HATEITHATEITHATEIT!!!) and a cute little amigurumi... I have a pattern of a little but ferocious dragon :-) If that doesn't make me forget the socks (HATEITHATEITHATEIT!!!) then nothing will. I might crochet an owl bookmark too. Or make Dobby style bookmark, and take my sock points from that >:->