You Got Me Thinkin' That I'm Wastin' My Time

What on earth happened with these stripes? How did I screw up the stripe pattern on mass-produced striped sock yarn ?

I was very careful to match the toes:

I paid attention to my gauge, to make sure that things matched up. That is, as well as can be expected on socks that are knit a row or two at a time while waiting for trains, or meetings, or jump-starts (thanks, S___!). I even marked the afterthought heel at the same row, and they looked pretty good:

But wait. Look a the last couple of stripes on the top of the 2nd sock. There's pink where there should be brown, and now the pattern repeat that I'm on is several inches off of the pattern on the right:

Arrrrrgh. How could this happen, you ask? I asked myself the same question. Then I turned the finished sock inside out, and I found my answer:

Although I have no recollection of this AT ALL from sock #1, there must have been a knot in the first skein that was tied out of sync. I am not sure if this is at all typical of this yarn (Regia Kaffe Fassett), or if it was just a fluke, but I'm not pleased at all about it. I'm glad that I found this out now, when I only have to rip back a few inches--it was really pure coincidence that I even looked at it, usually this project stays in the car.

After ripping out, a couple of inches, and then pulling maybe another inch worth of yarn, it was pretty simple to get the stripes back on track:

I'm a little concerned that the stripe matching here and at the beginning of the 2nd sock is going to result in a shortage of yarn when I come to the heels, especially if the heels are to match. I think that a contrasting heel would look great, but I've yet to see any yarn that's a great color fit. I supposed I could just slap on another blue . . . but hopefully it won't come to that.