Sock Blahs

After seven years of knitting, I am ready to announce that I am officially A Product Knitter. I know, I'm slow. It took me so long to figure it out because I really do enjoy the process: the thinking, matching yarn and pattern, the act of stitch after stitch after stitch. I take great pleasure in the materials of my craft, and I think the fact that often I choose a project simply because I want to try a certain technique or because I've decided a yarn's time had come to be knit confused things for me.

But socks made it clear for me. At some point, I decided I wanted a drawer full of handknitted socks. I wanted to go through a winter wearing nothing but my knitted socks. I wanted enough socks that I could do handwash the socks once a week or so, and still have enough in the drawer while I got around to doing the laundry. I wanted durable socks, socks that matched my clogs, really pretty socks, orange socks, neutral socks, and socks to wear with sneakers. I was obsessed with patterns and yarns and the combination of the two. I made tons of socks. I gave many pairs away, but ended up with about a dozen pairs of socks for me. I had all the socks I wanted and needed.

And at that point, as a Product Knitter, my interest in sock knitting dried up, as did my desire for sock yarns. Sock patterns no longer excite me and swell my Ravelry queue. Remember my torrid affair with Nancy last summer? I'm so over it. I've got the Sock Blahs.

I'm not hanging up my size 0 dpns by any means. I'm still knitting socks, and I doubt that I'll ever give them up for any length of time. We all know that they are great travel knitting, car pool knitting, purse knitting, and since socks wear out, I'll have to keep rotating in new pairs. My stash still overflows with lovely sock yarns which will have their time to be knit.

This skein of Sunshine Yarns in Neapolitan, for example, came to me as part of a destash from Laura, and it sat, wound, in a drawer, for at least a year or two until it's time had come. The yarn is highly variegated, very likely to pool, so Jaywalkers were the obvious solution. No offense to a classic pattern, but knitting Jaywalkers is symptom of serious Sock Blah.

Right now, I'm obsessed with sweaters. All I want to knit are sweaters. Baby sweaters and Lady Sweaters. Cabled sweaters and tweedy sweaters. Cardigans for Rosebud, and maybe a stripey pullover. A vest for Pepe too. Mostly sweaters for me, though. I've actually finished two that I'll be sure to blog about soon, and that cardigan for Rosebud is already knit to the yoke.

Brooks Farm Acero, 3 x 1 rib. More blah.

But it seems that Mr S also wants a drawer full of handknit socks. For those readers new to the blog, Mr S has size 13 feet. I guess now every pair is even more an act of love, since his feet are big, he wants boring socks, and I've got a bad case of the Sock Blahs.