sock it to me

When I was little I was very afraid of monsters. They could be lurking anywhere, the backyard, the basement, the top of the monkey bars, the bottom of the slide, or the closet.














Thanks to my father I had a lovely homemade loft bed so I KNEW there were none under the bed. Well, maybe there were some under the bed while it was being constructed in the basement. Those basement monsters were forces to be reckoned with. My father must have performed an exorcism when he brought it upstairs.

When I got a little older we had a cedar closet which instead of monsters, housed vampires. This was particularly disturbing because it was right next to my bedroom. Sometimes I would run quickly out into the hall and down the stairs so that the vampires would not notice me.

For the past few days I've been feeling this way about one of my current closets. Inside lurks a grownup monster.......Unfinished Knitting. Not just any Unfinished Knitting, the Unfinished Sock.

Two years ago James and I got married and took our honeymoon in France. I got a little obsessed with the idea of knitting socks on the trip because they don't take up a lot of room and I had never knitted socks before. Even better, I was going to knit us both purple socks, matching honeymoon socks. My friend Paige and I went to the yarn store to buy all the materials I woudl need. She generously financed one set of socks as a wedding present. I was off. I made it most of the way down the leg on the plane trip over and had grand hopes. Then I got distracted by France. And driving since James doesn't drive stick (and to be fair, hadn't lived in France and done plenty of driving there before). On the way home I did a little more, turned the heel and began the gusset.

As soon as I got home it went into the closet. And it stayed there. It even moved closets last summer. Some of the yarn became a hat. I took out the needles to use on another project.

As I read more about knitting I read more about knitters who are obsessed with socks. As I see more pictures of hand knit socks I find they look more and more enticing. The Yarn Harlot who loves socks, knits socks, writes (hilariously) about socks. and takes socks sightseeing is pulling me down the rabbit hole with her blog.

As my upcoming trip to Africa looms and I again need something portable that will take a while I have begun to think about knitting socks again. And about how maybe I should knit James' honeymoon socks. And, if I am going to do that, maybe I should try to finish MY honeymoon socks. So I have been tiptoeing past the closet, wondering how much of a mess my socks are, wondering if I can possibly figure out where I am in the pattern.

Yesterday evening I cracked open the closet to have a look. Here is what I found:



OK, what I found after I put the needles back in. A sock! One that had no dropped stitches! One that I could figure out where I left off! But one that might not have enough yarn to finish. I decided to try. One Park Slope Food Co-op General Meeting (You have to work to shop, you can get credit for going to meetings twice a year, I can knit through meetings. A perfect solution), some TV watching, and a call to the State Department to check on passports later...


...a sock and a half! The toe is a different color so I don't run out of yarn. I have plans to make it look more intentional. Maybe if both socks look the same it will look more intentional. But it is still a sock! My first sock! I think I might love knitting socks. Almost as much as dishclothes.



In other exciting news Gris-Gris now says, "OK, Gris-Gris, see you later, goodbye! heh, heh, heh, heh!" In fact "see you later" seems to be her favorite word of the day. She just started saying it last night. At a phrase a week what is her vocabulary going to be like when she's 25? I think we are in big trouble.