Perhaps it is the joyously easy nature of wearing handknit socks. I've been walking pretty fair distances every day this fall, training hard for the marathon walks I'll be doing in Italy next spring, and mostly I'm wearing my handknit socks to do it.
But last Saturday I discovered that my new weird tights (I pictured them a few weeks ago - one has an assymetrical pattern of stripes, the other a colourblock design in grey, red, and black) look fantastic with a knee-length dress and my ankle-high rainboots. Since the rainboots are one of the two footwear choices I find best for walking without hurting my knee, I've been doing a lot of dress/tights/boots combinations and here is what I have discovered:
1/ I'm getting awfully close to 50 for a girl who still thinks colourblock tights and floaty dresses and ankle boots are a good idea; and
2/ those seams on the toes of machine-knit socks and tights get really hurty after a while.
Another thought occurred to me after I'd been over at Trish's working on my travel sock:
I was once again trying to persuade her that socks are awesome to knit and she was once again telling me that socks drive her crazy, and I was still reflecting on this on my way home when it occurred to me that Trish had been knitting a cowl for somebody else. In fact, practically everything Trish knits is for somebody else. She is pretty much the queen of gift knitting, and she doesn't even wait till special occasions beyond, say, You looked cold yesterday or This colour reminded me of you.
(you may at this point feel that Trish is a very nice person indeed and you would be right; she is.)
Now, when you are a selfish yet prolific knitter like me, you quickly realize that you cannot knit another cowl or hat or scarf or shawl because you simply can't wear that many of them. Socks on the other hand - you wear those every day, and then you need to wash them so they're taken out of circulation while they dry. Sock knitting projects are practical in a situation like that.
If on the other hand you have a constant and widespread demand for cowls and hats and lace scarves, you can knit them to your heart's content and never question whether you could get away with layering two hats today just so the other one doesn't get any dustier waiting for its turn to go out.
Come to think of it, now that she knows how to knit, Jill is also knitting a ton of things for people other than herself. H'mmmmm.
(but if I emulate their niceness, how can I also have socks? and I loooove socks so much. I think selfish is the right choice for me.)
My Secret Sorrow
I'm kidding, I keep no knitting secrets.
I started the cast on for both of these socks super carefully so the stripes would line up but one had a longer tail and I foolishly went ahead knitting that one's cuff before I started the other, only to find that
GAH
The tail I'd left for it was just long enough for all the stitches plus being knit into the first three of the first row. That's why that one has a safety pin marking the cuff in the picture up there: it's where the tail would have been. Except I don't really need it to remind me where the start of the round is because
GAH
now that I'm well into the socks and would cry if I had to rip them out, the teeny tiny tail is working its way loose from the ribbing where I attempted to run it in. I think I'm going to have to take drastic measures like, I don't know... handstitch it in place, with thread?
At least the Home Sock is looking lovely.
ahhhhh, how happy I am to be knitting these stripes.
And how happy I am to wish all my American friends a superfabulous Thanksgiving. May your feasts be delicious and your shopping, more so!
(I'm coming back again tomorrow, since we Canadians don't have a holiday, but I kinda doubt anybody else will. I wouldn't either if I was doing Black Friday stuff. Priorities, people.)
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