Close Enough for Jazz

I'm working on a pair of socks; OK, so four pairs of socks, but the ones I'm talking about are the Flame Wave Socks by Ann Budd.  Now this is how the sock is supposed to look:

Sample of Leg

This is how mine looks:

This discrepancy has never really bothered me, and I just kept chugging along, assuming there was some sort of explanation for it, but not ever stopping to figure out what it was.  At Knit-night a week or so ago, knottyred was working on the same pattern, with socks looking just like the ones in the book.  I was rather struck by the similarity (you know, they look like they should and all), and I may have attributed the fact that her excellent sock looked exactly like the one in the book to the fact that she had found the yarn the pattern called for (and that she's a fine knitter, bien sûr), and that I found a decent substitute (I'm using Katia Cotton Comfort, and the pattern calls for Cascade Yarns Fixation Solid, which I'd only been able to find thus far in variegated colourways).

Of course, the yarn itself is not really the reason.  My knitting know-how, on the other hand seems to have been lacking (not too surprising, as I've only been doing this for two years and there is much to learn).   When I was working on another pattern sometime later that had paired m1 increases that leaned in opposite directions, and referred to one of the sets as the usual way, I learned that I am not doing my m1s in the usual way.

m1, the usual way

The 'unusual' m1

 This usual way, which I surely did learn at some point and then modify for some unknown reason is to pick up the bar between stitches from front to back, then knit through back loop.  Now the unusual way, or what I have been doing, is to pick up the bar from front to back and then knit through the front.  It still took me the better part of a week after this to realize that since I was working these m1s in an unusual manner, it would look different, and that maybe, just maybe, those socks really were supposed to look like the ones in the book, and that I had made somewhat lacey socks rather by accident.

 

Ah well, I've come so far, I might as well continue, and they do look rather nice anyhow, even if not as intended.  The result is a slightly smaller hole than a yarnover, and this fact did come in handy while knitting my daughter's lace cardigan when I missed a yarnover; I did a M1 the unusual way on the following round, and while it's nowhere near perfect, it lined up about where it should and looks about right at a glance.

As with the socks, close enough for jazz.