Socks and Sleeves

When I first went to Brighton Art College, I shared a flat witha girl who was very good at maths, which I wasn't good at at all.
One day, she bought some wool and started to knit some beautiful patterned socks, bright green, red, white, on four needles.
'Oh I wish I could do that!', I said.
'It's really difficult, actually', she told me.
I looked over each evening at TV-watching time; the socks grew, getting more beautiful by the day and by the centimetre.
I was jealous.
One Saturday afternoon when she was out, I picked up her knitting and had a close look to see how it worked.
'Aha!'
I bought some wool and four needles, and started to knit my own coloured socks, because it is not hard to knit patterns at all; it requires patience, but you don't have to be a mathematician.
My socks did not match; I was too bored to copy the first sock, and I also thought it was silly that just because we have two feet we should wear the same sock on each one. This backfired occasionally- once, a child walking behind me whispered loudly to it's mother 'Do you think we should tell that lady she has got a different sock on each foot?'
There is also a thing about sleeves. In The Chefs, I used to take the sleeves off one checked shirt and sew them on to another. I am just about to do that with some shirts that I bought way back in those days. There's a logistical problem: I have three shirts, and I can't work out how to swap sleeves around so they all have different sleeves. I am going to solve this problem the way I solve every problem: staring. If I look at the shirts for long enough, a lightbulb will flick on in my brain and a solution will materialise.