Tuesday, October 10, 2006


I cannot stand the sight of this sock. Though not pictured, there really is another, matching one.

When I met my husband, he was wearing these hand-tooled Italian shoes and grey and light blue striped socks. It was an odd combination and one of the things, frankly, that made me fall for him. I was young. These things happen.

Fast forward many years. The socks are long gone. I discover knitting. I see everyone knitting socks and loving it. I figure that I can knit socks and love it. I buy some grey and blue self-striping yarn and open my Ann Budd handy guide to knitting lots of stuff and get to work.

Well. I hate the yarn. Hate. It feels like plastic. It squeaks. I hate my needles. I keep snapping them (I'm knitting dk yarn on size 2s. maybe that has something to do with it). I buy bryspuns. I like them a little bit better. I knit the first sock, with much agony, and start on the second. The second ball of yarn is full of knots. So I painstakingly snip, measure, find another repeat of the appropriate color, and splice together yarn, damned near every color change, the whole damned sock. So much for 'self striping' yarn.

I snap the bryspuns.

I toss the socks in a corner and ignore them.

Now I'm knitting my husband a sweater. He loves it. He's happy. He's already requesting the next one. He remembers the socks.

I pull them out, reluctantly, and find that all that's left are the toe decreases. A year wiser, I whip out my addi 40" 2s and magic loop the toe, finishing them off.

They're too big. They slouch. I made a mistake when knitting the gusset - I decreased every round instead of every other round, making a tiny gusset, and a weird tight-yet-slouchy part at the ankle. He loves them. Which is all that matters. Kind of. Because now, when looking at his stripey feet, instead of my heart skipping a beat, I cringe a little. Am I really considering making another pair? Do I really believe a better yarn will help? Do I really think that I'm smarter now?

Or, do I dig deeper within myself and figure if I was able to learn to live with the imperfect owner of the feet, that I can eventually learn to live with the imperfect socks? I mean, the relationship has made it a decade. I doubt the lousy socks will. Will they?

8 Comments:

Blogger Davina said...

LOL If he loves them, that helps. I knit my first socks using some cotton/elastic yarn. It wasn't so bad. I used size 4 40" addis and they went pretty fast. Not sure why I'm typing this.

Miss ya, Marnie.

11:07 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Thank you for making me laugh... He really loves you ;)!

Like Davina: cotton sockyarn is really soft, but some wooly's too!
groeten uit Holland

11:47 AM  
Blogger Laura B said...

Well, you knitted a lot of memories into them! That's always nice.

12:28 PM  
Blogger Liz K. said...

No more socks. You hate knitting socks. Stop it with the socks. Knit something you love for him.

(Sheesh, I don't mean to sound bossy, but gezz, why torture yourelf!)

1:59 PM  
Blogger Miss Scarlett said...

Well if it isn't fun why do it??
Unless he loves them enough to make the difference.
I kind of hated making my 1st sock - it was taking forever - but I liked making the next one and then the Sock Wars pair. So...I would think if you tried again and still felt that strongly - give it up. Socks are cheap to buy and time consuming to make. ;-p
Hey! I snapped my bamboo dpn's 2mm size too.
I seem to be ok with metal - though there are some needles with a wicked curve now!

9:14 PM  
Blogger Marnie said...

that was the first and last pair of cuff-down socks (except for sock wars where i had no choice). i've done subsequent socks toe up with good (and not good) yarn. they're *ok* but not my favorite things to knit. i'm sure i won't stop making them, though, they're too perfect as a carry everywhere project and i love wearing them.

I'll just press on and whine about it.

6:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're simply wonderful, Marnie!

2:06 AM  
Blogger Woman who knits said...

If he loves them, you should love them!! Thanks for giving me a smile with your story!

8:07 AM  

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