Ahhh, socks. I love handknit socks. I resisted knitting socks for so long. I think it was the statistic about a pair of socks taking nearly as many stitches as a sweater combined with the teeny-tiny needles and skinny yarn that turned me off to them. I resisted sock knitting, even after hearing dozens of podcasters rave about knitting socks and wearing hand-knit socks and seeing hundreds of unique sock patterns on Ravelry.
And then there’s the horror stories and pictures of ill-fated attempts at sock knitting. Half of sock knitting is just a tube and tubes aren’t interesting. That’s why I don’t knit sleeves. And there’s the fear that they will end up different lengths, sizes, etc…
You know what turned the corner for me? Store-bought socks and the way they never fit my toes right. I hate when socks bunch up around/under my toes, and I couldn’t find socks (that weren’t meant to go in tennis shoes) that fit right. And yet again, I heard someone (or several someones) talking about the joy of handknit socks and being able to make them anyway you choose.
The first time I slid a handknit sock onto my foot, it was love. I was lucky – my first handknit sock fit perfectly and I couldn’t have been more happy about it. My first pair of socks were knit last fall (including knitting on my first sock at my college homecoming – at the bar while we waited out the rainstorm that made the football unbearable) and I’ve finished 5 additional pairs since then. You can check them out here.
I had a bit of knitting ennui near the end of February. I had been working on a few different projects, but none of them were making me happy and one of them was in time-out until I could decide its fate. That shawl was nearly frogged, washed & reskeined on more than one occasion. I wanted to knit, but I didn’t know what to knit to make me happy. I needed something that would be portable enough to knit on lunch breaks, etc. but nothing in my queue was speaking to me. I wanted to knit it all eventually, but not right now. I was languishing in my ennui one night and whining to the hubs, when he asked the ever-important question: “How long has it been since you had a sock on the needles?”
That was it. I needed a sock on the needles. Since St. Patrick’s Day was coming up, I decided that green socks would fix my lack of desire to knit. Enter Lorna’s Laces fingering in ‘Envy’. I love that name & when I saw the family of greens and tans, I had to buy this yarn, even though I didn’t knit socks at the time. Out of deep stash the yarn came and onto 2 circs it went.
Fast forward to last night:
One sock done and I immediately cast the second sock on. It had to be done. I want to wear these in 1-2 months when Mother Nature finally gets back on her meds & lets Spring come to visit.
Donita Westman 