This was not one of my finer knitting moments.  I planned on making socks for my brother-in-law, Rob, for Christmas.  I painted the yarn and was extremely happy with the result -- colorful, yet manly.  I knit one sock in time for Christmas and explained to Rob the other would follow within the week.  I started the second sock a few days after Christmas and then started having a nagging feeling.  I have heard other knitters speak in hushed tones about the knitting fates smacking them down when their knitting egos got too big for their britches.  (My grandma used the word "britches" and I always thought it had a delightful homey early-20th century sound to it.) Anyhow, I have never run out of yarn on a project, not in a way that wasn't easily fixable.  I have used this yarn to make socks before without incident.  I should have listened to my nagging feeling as I ran out of my one-of-a-skein hand dyed yarn mid-way down the foot of the second sock. Arggggg! Curse the knitting fates! I put the socks away for a month until I could look at them and objectively come up with a solution that didn't involve ripping out both socks in a fit.  So here is my solution in all of its beautiful ugliness:

Robbing Peter to pay Paul and my exercise in futility

Yes, I unraveled one sock to knit it directly to the other...until they matched.  Then I found a nicely coordinating yarn to finish both socks so they matched.  I actually liked the result-- certainly not what I planned but I like them.

I checked the mass of the socks before I started the toes and found my problem.  I only had 92g of a 100g skein of yarn.  I occasionally rob ("rob" the verb, not Rob my brother-in-law as I would never rob Rob.    a bit of yarn from one skein to finish some bit of another project.  If I do this again, I will explicitly mark the decrease in yardage on the skein.  Hear that, knitting fates, I learned from my mistake!