Argo and a delightful pair of socks (2012 FO #15)

Argo

Last night I went to see Argo, Ben Affleck's third directorial effort. It's a good film - enjoyable, good costumes and sense of place, decent script. But the end of the film just didn't ring true to me so today, while procrastinating working hard on my thesis, I thought I'd look up its accuracy. According to Wikipedia, the last half hour of the film is completely made up! The role of other countries in the escape is minimised or represented falsely (a decision that apparently weighed very heavily on Affleck, whatever) and the escape scenes are based in fantasy rather than a true story.

Now I don't expect Hollywood to represent the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The Cole Porter biopic Night and Day (1946) starring Cary Grant is a complete fabrication. But all of the film style in this film works to create a realistic effect - uncannily accurate casting (to the detriment of the acting quality, but that's another issue), documentary/first-hand style photography in the opening scenes and the 'this is where they are now' captions at the end of the film. It's unabashed audience manipulation and, knowing how hard the film works to create misrepresentation and recirculate false ideas definitely causes me to reassess my previous good opinion of the film.

In happier news

I have finished my Rainy Day socks!

Check out the polar bear pyjama pants - am I rocking the daytime work sexy or what?

These were possibly the easiest and quickest socks I have every made in my life. I cast on and then left them by the computer, Whenever I or the computer needed a moment to think, I picked up the socks and did a few rows. 

Before you know it, without even trying and definitely without feeling like I put in any time or effort, the socks were done!

I made quite a few modifications to the original pattern. To get the most out of my yarn, I worked them toe up by casting on 20 stitches. using Judy's Magic Cast-on. I increased four stitches every row until I had 32 stitches then increased four stitches every second row until I had 52 stitches. I then knit one row increasing two stitches only leaving me with 54 stitches (one extra repeat)

I knit six rows plain so the toe would cover all of the actual toes of the recipient then proceeded as per normal for any toe-up sock.

I used a short-row heel and Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Cast-off to end up with a fabulously comfortable and luxurious pair of socks.



While half of me doesn't want to give them away, the other half is saying IT'S NOVEMBER AND 25% OF YOUR CHRISTMAS KNITTING IS DONE! REJOICE!

So I'm going with rejoicing :)  Woowoo - total number of WIPS down to 15 (still a lot, but better than it was. As the Beatles say, it's getting better all the time.)