these f*ing socks

This pair of socks is ruining my life. My knitting life, anyway (there's another kind?)

I bought this colorway of Koigu on a whim- blues and pinks. I like blue, and I love pink, so I should love this color, right? Meh. I'm ambivalent. Worse, when I started, I was using two circular needless having taught myself that way of socking only one pair ago. I finished the first sock, tried it on and hated it. It was too thick. Which means, of course, that the needle was too small. Ok, go up a size to 3's. Since I had a lace pattern on the leg, the only thing that bothered me was the foot, so I undid the foot and reknit on 3's. Much looser. Maybe, too loose?

The foot was almost hole-y. Not to mention the drastically different color-striping patterns. But I thought, let's wait a day. Maybe I'm not as unhappy as I thought I was.

So I cast on for the second sock, using my trusty ChiaoGoo dpns this time. After finishing the ribbing, I noticed that there seemed to be a THIRD color pattern happening.

WTF? Had a horrible thought. I went back and measured my circs. 1's!!!

Oh, bother.

Sigh.

See the huge difference?

I'm far too anal to let this go, so I knew that when I finished the second sock, I would go back and completely redo the first sock- on the right size needles. But in between I started working on the fishnets so as not to rip my hair out.

When I got back to the Koigu, I frogged the first sock and cast on the ribbing.

And promptly worked 12 rows in the wrong ribbing (k2, p2 instead of k2, p1).

D'oh!

Frog.

Cast on. Again. For the third time.

Ok, right number of stitches this time, AND the right ribbing. 12 rows, check, on to lace pattern, check.

I'm nearly done with the leg now, and what do I see?

A FOURTH color pattern! Nearly vertical stripes, instead of spirals!

$%^*($)(#(U@#$~~!@()&^