My so-called sock club

While I've been jabbering on about quarters and pumpkin patches and kids who leave every bit of their outerwear on the bus (he wore his jeans to school backwards last week. Claims he didn't realize what he'd done for almost an hour), I've also been quietly plugging away at my own version of the Harlot's self-imposed sock club.

Now, Stephanie went about this in a very organized fashion. She went through her stash, pulled patterns and paired them with yarn, sorted it all into 12 large ziplock bags, and placed them on a prominent shelf in her closet, with plans to knit one pattern a month all year.

I, on the other hand, read her post in January, thought, "oh, what a good idea!", then went along my merry way. I had one pair of socks on the needles at the beginning of the year, socks that had been started at Rhinebeck, then picked away at for months while I spent my free time working on lace, colorwork and mittens. I didn't get them off the needles until February.



I cast on the next pair right away, and finally forced myself to finish them two and a half months later.



If I were being honest with myself, I would have admitted that I just didn't feel like knitting socks at that point in time, and gone on happily to other things. Which is what I did anyway, I'm not a monogamous knitter by any stretch of the imagination, but I felt guilty. I am a sock knitter, for heaven's sake! What on earth had me so disinterested in sock knitting that it was taking months to finish projects that usually take me two weeks, tops?

It was about this time that we began the process of transitioning WB from Early Intervention to the school district, and her doctors referred her for neurological testing. Combine all that with the normal end-of-the-school-year-brouhaha and trying to nail down our plans for the summer, and before I knew it my stress and anxiety levels were rising, I started having trouble concentrating, sleep became more elusive ... and socks -- soothing, self-patterning, stockinette socks -- were back on my radar.

I finished this purple and red pair in June:



These lovely striped ones in July:


(I am particularly fond of these)

and started these while on vacation in August:



I was entering the data for this last pair into Ravelry when I realized ... since June, I've been finishing a pair of socks every month.

Sort of like ... a sock club.

It was a light bulb moment.

I decided to try and maintain my pace. I set only a few rules: I would cast on a new pair of socks no later than the fifth of the month, or within no more than two days of finishing the previous pair, if the knitting of that pair ran a bit over month's end. The socks were to be plain stockinette, as I intended to keep them in my purse and work on them primarily while accompanying and waiting for the children at their activities and appointments. I could knit stranded socks if I wanted to, but those projects would be separate from the club.

I decided that I would choose the yarn for the club by sticking my hand into the sock bin and knitting the first yarn I pulled out ... which is why my September socks are made out of yarn I'd been holding sacred saving for years. It gave me a pang to knit it up, but the result was worth it ....



The last two pairs of socks both ran over a bit, so I decided to play catch up in October, and finish a project that had been languishing on my needles for over a year. The exact reason these socks were condemned to stash purgatory have been lost to the mist of time .... although I'm 99.999999% sure it had something to do with the eye-popping colorway. I picked them back up again on October 8th, and have been thinking about the tropical climes ever since. "These socks need a margarita!" I said to anyone who made the mistake of commenting on my work in progress.

I finished them this afternoon, and, having finished before the (self-imposed, consequence-free) deadline, decided a small celebration was in order.


(One guess what's in the glass.)