Lost and Found

And now a tale of Second Sock Syndrome, with epic proportions:

Last summer, deep in the throes of book deadlines and book projects and big pulsating gobs of general book trauma, I took a mini-vacation by knitting a sock. 

It was for my mom's 78th birthday.  I knew there would only be one sock finished in time, but I also knew it wouldn't matter to her one bit.  She's the one who used to regularly give people boxes of cut pattern pieces, or piles of scraps, or skeins of yarn as presents, with the promise of completing the project in future days.  Sometimes she even did complete them, but that wasn't the point.  It was the intention that was her gift; the fact that she had taken the time to conceive of the project, with the recipient in mind.  Her five children grew up believing that a gift-wrapped intention is the better part of any gift.

And so I knitted the sock of rebelion, and gave it to Mom, to great acclaim.  She loved it.  And then I took back so that I could make it a mate at some point after the book was done.

Once the book was finished, I couldn't wait to get back to Mom's sock.  It felt like I'd heard all but the last chord of a song and if I didn't play it soon I'd have to just sit there twitching.

Except the sock was gone.  I couldn't find it anywhere.  High, Low and In Between; all the looking I could do failed to produce the sock.  I began to doubt that I had ever made it in the first place.  My disappointment was profound.  Here at last I was experiencing a sock project where I didn't feel like waiting before tackling the second sock, and I was dead in the water.  I didn't have enough yarn to start over and make three socks.  I had altered the pattern in enough subtle ways (i.e; made mistakes) on sock #1 that just jumping in on #2 would yield a mismatch (should #1 ever resurface).

So I did what any self-respecting procrastinator would: Nothing.  I worked on other things.  I designed, I wrote, I made up classes.  But I secretly could not get that missing sock out of my head. 

I realized at one point this spring that I was still trying to work in a space which had been consumed by projects from the book.  Piles of yarn, ball bands, needles, reference books; all loosely grouped by project, had completely taken over the ground floor of my house.  Hard to believe that nobody in my family ever complained, but there you have it: they are not the most Notice-y bunch.  I finally cleared the decks.  And moved the furniture.  And found the sock.

So a whole year later, I found myself visiting my mom on her birthday, and I made the second sock.  For her 79th birthday. 
 

All's Well That Ends.  And of course, Mom had no memory of the first sock from last year. 

Pattern:        "Clover", by Kate Blackburn CLICK HERE
Yarn:             Simply Socks Yarn Company in "Cornflower" CLICK HERE
Motivation:    Only when a thing becomes impossible, do I really feel like doing it.

I have GOT to learn to knit two-at-a-time socks.

 

Silly Rabbits

I thought I got the Rabbit Problem out of my system a couple of months ago.  Clearly I was wrong.  My big brother asked me to please make these for his best friend's Easter present.  He especially wanted them to be every crazy color in the world, for which I just happened to have the perfect yarn.  Imagine.

I think they look like they are made out of candy.  Which should please my big brother, who is famous for his weapons-grade sweet tooth.  His doctor told him to make sure his diet included lots of different colored foods, so he bought the BIG bag of M&M's.  He also makes a regular habit of sending money to my children with strict instructions to hit post-holiday candy sales.  The days after Halloween, Christmas, Valentines Day and Easter are almost as big around our house as the holidays themselves.  And our dentist will get to build a vacation house in Spain.  Everybody wins.

Hoppy Easter!

Second Language

I've been knitting in Japanese again.  There is something so compelling to me about the way the drawings for these designs are made.  Following them is like being able to play music, without ever reading the score.  It's knitting distilled to its very essence, with nothing superfluous.  It makes me wish I could write patterns without any prose instructions at all.  Maybe one day I'll try...

I didn't have enough yarn to make the long sleeves and turtleneck called for in the pattern, but I kinda like it this way.  As though Spring might come one day, after all.  Not today, but one day.

I like the way the cables and openwork alternate.  This is my first time working cables without a cable needle - I had to figure it out because I lost the cable needle - and it wasn't as hard as I thought.  

Bailey tried to help me figure out the name of the book this is in, but ultimately we both gave up. Turns out he only barks Gaelic.