Socks…..

Lets start out with me and my feet.  I hate the shape of my feet.  Some lovely salesperson once tactifully said that I have a “classic european foot”.  Sounds wonderful and exotic and sophisticated, right?  NOT.  It means that I have a really high instep and a wide foot also.  It also means that a lot of shoes simply will not fit nor look good on my feet.  <insert the violins playing a sorrowful melody here>

I do like socks.  I also like yarn.  I love yarn shops, but I am not enough of a professional yarn fiber consumer to walk in and imagine the skein or hank becoming something else.  I need to have a pattern….with a picture….well lots of pictures.  Fabric is easy.  If I want to make a dress for the girls, I need 1.5yds of 60″ wide, 2+ of something 45″ wide, etc.  If I want matching outfits for pictures, I know how much I need.  Snip, snap, its cut and purchased.

Why is this important?  I think thats why I am attracted to sock yarn.  It has a purpose.  I can buy the correct amount.  Easily.  Interchangable patterns.  Whew.

Now actually KNITTING the socks.  Thats where the difficulty lies.  I did a scarf or two and got bored.  I’ve done hats, I’ve done felted slippers, blah…blah…blah.  I wanted to do socks.  I have lots and lots of sock yarn.  Even lots of sock patterns.  Even the required needles.  I just never get past the heel, if I even get past casting on.  Casting on socks is weird for me.  They don’t look right for a couple of rows.  For the first 15-20 minutes I am sure that I am messing something up.

So, while at fair, I watched the 4-H static exhibits a few times.  You get a chair and just make sure that no one spills ice cream on the sewing projects, runs off with the cookies from the cooking entries, etc.  I had no children with me, I left all of those people with my husband.  So it was quiet, relatively.  I had an evening shift, so not many people coming through.  I took only my sock yarn, a simple pattern and my needles.  I don’t like dp’s.  I think its because I have to count to 4 to keep track of them all.  I can only count to 3.  Which is why I only have 3 children.  It works well that way.

So here I am, pulling out the bare necessities and reading the pattern.  This adorably cute little girl comes up and says that her grandmother knits and she would love to watch me.  Crud.  Yeah.  I want to tell her that perhaps she shouldn’t watch me.  I am bound to make a mess of it.  But I let her and I chat with her about what she likes to do.  Very sweet girl.  She eventually leaves before I can admit to any mistakes or have to furrow my brows over the magic loop instructions.

Finally, I get it cast on and get a couple of rows on.  And in walks the owner of the LYS (Local Yarn Shop).  First, I am using KnitPicks yarn, not the dozens of skeins that I have purchased from her.  She can really knit.  I feel like an imposter.  She did help me when I was first starting out, again, in my adult life.  I learned how to knit from my mother, who was left handed.  So I learned mirroring her.  But I had an odd way of knitting into the back of the stitches, but purling into the front.  It worked well until I tried a complicated pattern with cables and then it didn’t work at all.  So I had to re-train myself on how to knit.  My world is sometimes inefficient.  Just the way it is.

Since we are moving to Texas and all, I have decided to make wool socks.  If you are scratching your head, you are not alone.  My loving husband is wondering at my sanity too.  But I do love socks and I’m sure that my feet will be cold at some point.  Or if I actually finish this pair, perhaps I will frame them.  Yeah…true fiber art!