In The Wee Hours
My new day job takes place at night. I work from 7PM to 7AM, three nights each week.
Charles Darwin, Zoology of the Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle (London, 1838-1843). F8.1.
So I'm in the process of learning how to sleep and be awake in the reverse order. Which, except for a *few* all-nighters in college, and various stints with small, sleep-refusing children, I have not done before. But there are so many great reasons for me to try. This schedule will (potentially) allow me plenty of time to look after all the things I love, namely:
- My Family
- My Friends
- My Knitting
- My Dogs
So while I reset my formerly-diurnal internal clock, I need knitting that is just challenging enough to keep me awake, but not hard enough to flummox my sleep-deprived brain. Enter: The Knee Sock Challenge.
My BFF took me in hand a while back and made me clean out my stash. It was the nicest thing another knitter has ever done for me, although at the time it felt a little more like a bloodletting. To ease the pain, BFF distracted me. She reached into the newly-organized sock yarn pile without looking and pulled out a skein, then she said "Here: make socks from this". A good friend always knows the right medicine to administer.
I've been working on the challenge, off-and-on, as one does. I decided early on that I wanted knee socks, which necessitated the addition of another skein to the project. You'll notice that it doesn't really match the first one, which I kind of like. Anyway, I pulled out the sock, deep into my late-night vigil, and realized it was almost done. I finished it, and started its mismatched mate.
Of course, I started this a while back, and failed to write even a single note for myself about how I made the first one. Fortunately, the slipped stitches make it pretty easy to count, and it's the same vanilla toe-up recipe I always follow (Come to my new class on this at Vogue Knitting Live in Chicago: "Very Mary Toe-Up Socks"), so I think I'll be able to work the second sock, forensically.
Thank you, BFF, for the Knee Sock Challenge. Neither of us could have known when you issued it what comfort it would bring to me right now.
How about you, Gentle Readers? Why not get together with your best knitting friend and do the same? Each of you has to pick a sock yarn from the other's stash, and they have to knit whatever you choose. Dinner/pedicures are on the one to finish last.
Good Night.