
Of Socks and Serenity
There is a serenity that comes with knitting socks. It doesn’t come with knitting large projects, nor with crocheting items large or small. It also, strangely enough, often doesn’t come with knitting socks, either.
The thing about socks is that they’re basically foot-shaped. As a foot is not a simple piece of architecture, neither can the sock intended for it be. And so, like most peaces in this life, the serenity of sock is not always easily come by.
As Stephanie Pearl-McPhee observes, “In the nineteenth century, knitting was prescribed to women as a cure for nervousness and hysteria. Many new knitters find this sort of hard to believe because, until you get good at it, knitting seems to cause those ailments.”
A Plague of Frog
Alas, I have of late fallen victim to a Plague of Frog – the knitting kind of frog, that is. (Rip-it, rip-it.)
Of the 12 most recent projects I have listed on Ravelry, fully six are either frogged, waiting to be frogged, or frustratingly unfroggable. That is a 50% survival rate.
But from each failure, I learn something.