Sock Show Friday

I used to do sock project updates on Thursdays and then I trailed off on knitting socks for a decade. I was still knitting them, but not in the Always All the Time and Everyone Has  Rich Sock Drawer way that I was a decade ago. Honey cowls took over for a few years there. But I'm back on my sock nonsense for 2025 and that means I need some updates here to make sure that in five years I knew what I did again. 

I won't get to everything today because at the moment I have at least four pair on the needles. My brain keeps yelling that there is a fifth pair but I can't find it/figure out where it is. I'm sure some project bag will be coughed up somewhere and there will be that ah ha moment. (Note while I'm still drafting but after I got home, there is a fifth pair,  it was on my home office desk.)

What is very familiar is being back at the stage of "Oh I can't work on that pair because I'm at the toe and I need to check foot length." Which is, of course, how we got to five pair on the needles in the first place. It does mean that the four pairs currently that I can think of (orange/purple; green/gray; autumn/at work; bright blue and teal/purple/blue) are all on the second sock! 

I'd set out for 2025 to make a dozen pairs and right now that feels very doable. I've also given myself permission that anytime I'm sad or irritated or just need a hit of dopamine I'm allowed to start a new knitting project. The WIPs will abound. 

I have managed to achieve one full pair of socks so far.  Of course they are Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight. The colorway is Blackbird. I knit a sweater out of this colorway a few years ago and sadly, it is likely the only BMFA STR sweater I'll get to knit, as Tina hasn't been dyeing for a few years and most of us bought one skein in a colorway at a time. These socks were made of the leftovers. I'd forgotten how much this particular batch bled -- my hands were sooty black every time I worked on them and I need to make sure I do a couple of pre-rinses before wearing. 

Socks are an interesting trick -- you have a tube and then *mystical hand waving and occasional swearing* and then another tube and then.... SOCK.  It always gets questions in public, even as most of my friends recognize if there are more than 2 needles, it will likely be a sock. 

I have a huge bin of yarn set aside for 2025 socks, we shall see how far I get.   

Prepping for Next Year: 2024 Romancing the Vote and Ahead

I didn't really make time to blog about Romancing the Vote last summer but the joy and community it brought and continues to bring to me has been so critical. Below are screenshots of the various things I put into the 2024 auction, all of which have gone off to their various homes. One cowl even went to an author whose name was immediately recognizable. I hope it's been a great addition to her winter wardrobe. 

The auction went again to support organizations that work for voting rights, registration, and access and that is a cause I am very pleased to stay engaged with and to put support towards. 

As we got into the week of auctions, it was clear that "more things" would probably sell and I ended up adding two custom honey cowls. I emailed the winners after and we negotiated what colors I had in stash that I could knit up for them. I saw one in a picture in the online wild recently! 

And the team behind RTV has said we will indeed be back for 2026. On one hand, the idea of July 2026 feels like it is a million years from now. On the other and at the speed I have been knitting recently, that's basically tomorrow. So I'm back into the stash, pairing up things for yet more honey cowls to knit on the go. I have a plan for a great big shawl for people to fight over -- we'll see if I get it done enough that I am confident to submit it. 

A Redo

 I started this pair of socks on New Years Eve just before 2020. I finished them in May 2020, amidst a lot of optimism about what I'd accomplish for Stash Dash that year.  

And then they sat. I usually try to keep a backlog of finished socks here and there, sometimes I need a new pair, sometimes they are for a gift or I just haven't seen my mother in a while to have her try on whatever it is that fits around here.  She and AudioGirl continue to get first rummage through my finished objects--though it the pair is too small for all of us, then obviously Sibling the Elder gets those. 

But somewhere in there, moths made some damage, necessitating a complete rip out and redo. 

Having yarn in the quantities that I have means that the moth battles are continual. The stash lives in double layers of plastic and gets upended into piles regularly to check for damage. Finished projects get dried and into Ziplocks. I have traps up. But even with all that, occasionally I will see damage and when you consider there was a move and the first few years of this endless pandemic rolling along... I can't say I'm dreadfully surprised.  

Originally I thought these socks would just need a repair on each sock but it turned out it was more like 3 different break points on each-- spread across legs and feet and heels. And while I believe the leftovers are here somewhere (glances at a giant bag of leftovers that I 100% did not go rummaging through), I knew that trying to do that many repairs would leave a lot of extra rubbing spots and so, time for a redo. 

I ripped the socks out while watching a mandatory training -- preserve me from trainings that have a "click here to continue" every 35 seconds. But the training is done, the socks are restarted. 

The yarn is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight in the Harvest Star colorway. I've been working on acquiring more BMFA STR-L for socks recently through Ravelry trade/sale contacts. I have a couple of long pending orders with BMFA but it's unclear when those will come through and so I want a backlog. Fortunately, a few very nice people have been more than willing to trade yarn for dollars.  

Bigger issue of course is do I have space for any new yarn? Of course I do not. But space has never been a primary consideration when beautiful yarn is involved. 

I should also see about getting that sock project in my entryway and putting it on my desk rather than far enough away that I can't reach it and therefore don't have it when I have five minutes and another training video to watch. 

Marking the Year End and 100

 I finally wove in the ends, so officially I've finished the 100th pair of socks that I've made.  It only took 15 years.  Fortunately, I have it well documented when I started with the Tsock Tsarina Sock 101 kit in summer 2008. 

This picture is about 3 seconds before I put them on for a Christmas Eve event.  They are, keen eyed readers will observe, my favorite Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock base. It is unclear if I'll ever be able to get more of that from the dyer -- between health issues and mill issues -- BMFA STR might be a "only from people selling their stash" -- and why yes I did just have to stop myself going to see if I could acquire some. I'm fine, I have a lot. Especially at the rate I've been knitting this year.  

I also have my end of year amounts.  

This was surprisingly more than I realized I'd completed. I had some vague optimism about completing one more shawl and indeed in the past few days I've made a real dent. However, there are about 80 rows left and I have things planned to do other than knit for the next three days (seriously, what else should the week between Christmas and New Years be for??) 

My brain is finally quiet enough though that I have aspirations of all the knitting I will do in 2024. It will be multi-colored and brilliant. My yarn will FINALLY fit back in the stash boxes, and I will also find homes for the variety of things that currently don't have one.  

We shall see what actually comes to fruition but I have optimism and needles.  

Not the right needles, obviously. I need to get a few more. Also we need to talk about the yarn store I went to in Canada and and and and... 

  

Spite Yarn

Since the store is now permanently closed, I will tell you about the time I bought yarn out of spite.

When you see me, even if I'm not knitting there's probably an Emotional Support Sock in my purse. So about a decade ago when I happened to be up at my very new boyfriend's apartment for the weekend and realized I was without wool, I popped into the local yarn store to get something that would tide me over for the five or six hours until I got back to my stash. This was when I was knitting 10-15 pair of socks a year, so I was more fidgety than I am at present. 

The yarn store was small and had an okay selection but the store owner seemed deeply unwilling to sell me yarn. It became clear over a few minutes that I was not her preferred clientele (who all appeared to be richer and older than I was, then about 30). I remember getting a condescending answer when I asked if she carried metal needles. Oh, *those* were just not as good. My 20 years experience with mostly metal needles at the time was surprised to hear that. Also, wooden dpns that are 2.25 mm thick.... do you know how easily those snap when I sit on the bag accidentally? 

Spite Yarn

But I was determined and I found at least one colorway that I liked. What was I going to make, she asked? Socks.  She was SHOCKED! I COULDN'T! Great, do you have this colorway in any other base. Well, NO. Cool, I'll take the Madtosh Singles skein then. House slippers it would be.  

I'd say it was the most resentful $30 I think I've ever had a yarn store owner receive from me but I think that prize goes to the yarn store owner in La Crosse who physically got between me and the yarn on my first visit -- and kept scooting around so I couldn't get to the shelves -- that actually takes the cake.  (Caveat, the only money I ever spent in the LAX store was for a gift card that we gave away at an event.) 

The Philosopher spent years suggesting I try the store again after we moved in together and one afternoon I did. The owner was alone that day, I wasn't offending any of her knitting groups and we sort of chatted about yarn. I remember making a comment on how obviously something was Kaffe Fasset and his delight for Bonkers amounts of colors and her response of "well No One knits plain black socks."  

My response to that was to pull a pair of half finished plain black socks out of my purse. Yes they do. When your mother asks for plain black socks, that's something you make. Oh. 

I asked what she suggested for baby blankets, of which I was planning to make a few. She handed me super bulky multi-colored yarn in weirdly mixed colors that was never going to be machine washable. And with that I left. 

The store closed permanently sometime last year. I tried to think of it as a loss but it's not for me. If she'd been remotely friendly, I would have spent stupid amounts of money and heavily promoted them. I would have come in and knit and loaned them finished objects for the display window. 

And in this pass through the stash, I've decided the Spite Yarn needs to go. No, I never did knit it up into socks. I worked on it for a few inches and then went back to my own stash and one of the hundreds of other skeins I have.  

I've kept the yarn because spite and because the colorway is beautiful but I realized in this pass through the stash that I have several skeins from dyers I love in similar shades. So it's off to be in someone else's hands, someone for whom it won't immediately invoke spite. 

That's growth, right? 

I'll Just...

 The eyes of my knitting are always faster than my hands, bigger than my stomach, choose your metaphor. And yet it is a near constant that I will find myself reviewing the stash and starting a sentence with "I'll just..."

"I'll just whip up a baby blanket"

"I'll just make a full size adult sweater this week." 

"I'll just spend some time this summer making a few new shawls and six pair of socks." 

It's fascinating the ongoing disconnect between what I think I can accomplish in the limited time that is allocated to my knitting these days and the wonderful belief that these projects won't take tens to hundreds of hours each.  

The midsummer / July 4th weekend Must Review The Stash pang hit and I ended up going through the yarn bins at length over the weekend. Part of this was because it's been a year, always good to pull things out and see what you have, check for damage, reallocate bin space. And part of it was to actively get a few things into the Sell or Give Away piles.  

And I did end up winding up more yarn -- two more shawls that I've had yelling at the back of my head, yarn for a couple of pair of socks, and one more honey cowl for when I finish the one I quite literally just started. 

Here's the final work in progress / wound yarn for socks/Honey Cowls of Fall 2023 bucket. So what if I have only knit one shawl this year (oh right, you need the final details on that) and three pair of socks. I've got almost six months left, right? 

I'll just.... get started. 

Winding Amongst the Side Dishes

Friends invited a few of us over for a back patio dinner -- burgers and brats and whatever sides the spirit moved us to bring. I brought the prep for one of my usual multicolored fruit trays and two knitting projects.

First up, I needed to finish the toes on these socks. This is the 99th pair of socks I've finished, which means either the socks that are currently in a project bag or another pair soon will tip me over into that "more than 100" category. That's absolutely wild. I've only really been knitting socks for about 12 years, so that's something like 8-9 pairs on average a year. Though realistically it's been more like 3-5 in the past few years after a very strong start. 

The yarn is Sophie's Toes in a one of a kind colorway. According to my notes I picked it up in 2017 at YarnCon. That feels like a lifetime ago. She stopped dyeing a few years ago and I've lost track of her. Very nice knitter, I hope she is doing okay. 

Once the toes were cast off (and yes, I tried on one sock a couple of times while it was still on the needle to gauge length) I needed to wind up yarn for the Honey Cowl that is going to be desk knitting for the next bit. 

Fortunately, this group of friends has seen it all when it comes to my knitting. Flinging a skein around my knees and handwinding didn't even bring a blink of an eyelid. It was soothing to be in company that close, friends who are so familiar with your habits, hobbies, and oddities that something like getting this skein into a ball doesn't even register anymore. It's just part of what you expect from me. There are many friends and colleagues where I will never have that level of ease.  

The yarn for this is Fiber Sprout (the green) in her Night Zone colorway and Valley Yarns from Webs in Black. I caught the Anniversary sale this spring and bought a lot of black yarn to help with a variety of projects around the Chateau. Yes I bought more yarn so I can theoretically "use up" yarn. Yes I recognize the amusing nature of that. 

Anyway... I hope you're able to find friends with whom to sit outside, share a meal, and wind yarn at without concern for a few moments.