(Not Feeling the Sock) Love Thursday

(First, in another Not Feeling the Love Thursday Moment: I really want to scream that my freaking computer cannot remember me and log me in automatically to Blogger.com. I check the freaking box, dammit (there goes my R rating) and I expect to be remembered! How hard IS it? I have Cookies enabled, dammit, (another rating gone) remember me!)

There's a tradition in the blogosphere that's almost a year old (can it be a tradition if it's not even a year old?) of calling every Thursday, "Love Thursday." People are expected to post loving entries on their blogs and loving pictures of themselves doing loving things.

In theory, I support this. There is far too much divisiveness in the world and having one day a week dedicated to sending out Love vibes can't be a bad thing.

However, what usually happens to me --and I'm sure this is why Love Thursdays were born because maybe it happens to everyone --is that I tend to hit the peak of my crankiness on Thursday. It's not quite the weekend, my house has crossed over from the first half of the week when the housekeeper's presence can still be felt to totally being in need of a nice vacuuming, the dog has usually chosen Wednesday night to show that she's not got the iron bowels she used to have (and why always the really good woolen rug in the Living Room? Why?), if my husband is traveling, he usually comes home on Thursday night and so I come face-to-face with the idea that I haven't lost thirty pounds in the time that he was gone (or even, you know, one pound) --it's just usually the culmination of all things frustrating.

In all honesty, I've actually been sulking since LAST Thursday over THIS:


I finished the first of my husband's hand-knitted socks. You know, the ones I wanted to be completely perfect because they would be his introduction into hand-knitted socks?? I mean, there is nothing like a hand-knitted sock.

That fits.

Therein lies the rub, of course.

It doesn't fit him.

Apparently, I neglected to factor in something called negative ease.

Negative Freaking Ease.

I don't even know what that is but I hate it.

So I sulked for a while and then decided to realign my sockic Karma by knitting a pair of socks really, really fast for my younger daughter.

So it was 40 stitches versus the 84 for my husband's sock.

And then I didn't do anything complicated. I just knitted and knitted and knitted until I had a sock.

Oh, and I tried it on her as I went. That might be a key thing--although I will tell you that I tried my husband's sock on him all through the process of knitting it, too. I KNEW it was too big. And still I finished it.

I don't know what I was thinking. I was just thinking that... something would happen. Aliens would make a sock switch! Something would intervene--maybe a burglar would break in and STEAL the sock. Or even better, a KNITTING burglar would break in, see that the sock was woefully too big for a human foot and reknit it right there on the spot!

Nope.

It's just gi-normous. No way around it. I knitted it with my eyes open.

So, I knitted Jane a sock--in one day. Pretty impressive, for me. She loved the first one so much that she wore it, all by itself, with her sandals.

Then I finished the other one. She was so happy!


I knitted them with Cascade Fixation yarn which is this brilliant cotton yarn that has about one percent elastic in it. It's perfect.

So, then I immediately cast on a pair for Ana that I hope to finish tomorrow.


The other thing I did was give away my beautiful bamboo stitch socks that I knitted in that beautiful Claudia hand painted wool yarn. I gave them to my friend Sarah and let me tell you, she had exactly the right reaction to hand-knitted socks. It's like a million degrees here in Austin and she wore them home with her sandals. I will be making her socks until she begs me to stop.

At any rate, after I have finished Ana's Quick Socks, I am going to tackle knitting another sock for my husband. I'm not sure if it will be from the same wool or from something different that I pick up tomorrow when our summer baby sitter and I are going to Hill Country Weavers for an Outing. (As in, I will be Outed as a serious yarn hoarder.)

I guess it really is Love Thursday. I love knitting socks. I truly love it. I can't EXPLAIN it or anything. But I just love it.

As for the first huge sock for my hubby? I'm either going to knit a second one and give them away as a pair to some giant-footed person OR I might use it as a Christmas stocking.

Comments

N. Maria said…
I love your story. Your daughter is sweet!
Hubby will get a pair of socks...I can feel the karma!
Anonymous said…
Those socks look awesome considering they were knit on what appears to be toothpicks.

Oh, and technically, you misspelled the D word, so I wouldn't worry...
Anonymous said…
Keep the sock! I was just at Thursday night knitting at the shop near me, and one woman told the story of the socks she knit her husband-to-be when they were in college (in different towns, which explains the outcome). She just knew men generally have larger feet than women do, so she made the foot part, after she finished the heel part, 14 inches long-WAY too long. He married her anyway, and they saved the socks-when they have extra people at Christmas time, they use the huge socks for Christmas stockings for the guests.That was the first pair of socks she had knit, but she's still knitting them some 20 years later.
Barb Matijevich said…
I exaggerated somewhat about the size. (I'm sure that comes as a great sock to everyone.) I don't think it's really big enough for a Christmas stocking, plus, it's not very festive for a stocking... It just doesn't fit and my gosh, I sort of SUFFERED knitting it. I know, I know--who SUFFERS knitting a sock? It was just drudgery... I'll try again but I am taking some serious measurements this time, damn it. (That one was for you, Bloggrrl!)
Anonymous said…
oh barb,
roflmao!!!
my husband wants to know why i just snarfed a pepsi on the the pc screen, i told him it was a sock thing, he just wouldn't understand. then he made that "women baffle me" face. and i did it again.
thank you for the great story,
you should 'lurk' less--you are too funny to not post a lot.
iris
Damsel said…
You so very totally inspired me. Linking to you in tonight's post! :)
Amanda said…
My mother-in-law knitted her to-be-husband (my Father-in-law) a pair of argyle socks. Somehow, she didn't carry the yarn properly across, or didn't pick up the stitches in the heel properly. Something, she's not sure what. What is sure, is Pop put his foot into the sock and the heel came away in one piece as he slid it on.

He likes to say, he married her anyway.
ckh said…
I can't knit at all. My mom taught me a couple of years ago, (finally!) but my daughters un-did my efforts and now I don't know how again. I'm sure that your next sock effort will work out just fine. If at first you don't succeed, try try again. (The current lesson at our house.) And besides, you can always make a sock monkey out of this one.
~Carol
Unknown said…
The socks still look great and like the rest of us, you have to learn soemehow and start somewhere!
Suna Kendall said…
Yeah, what Colin said, ya gotta start somewhere. And you will make lots of sock mistakes. They are still the most fun things to knit, ever (says person on third pair of socks this month after taking 6 months off to knit lace).

I think there was some grumpy thing in the air, though, because I also posted a very grumpy thing to a blog yesterday. Today I will post a NICE thing to my knitting blog, I promise.

And I am so with you on Blogger. WHY won't it remember me? I am so sick of typing in my entire email address. I liked it back in the old pre-Google days when I had a nice short Blogger user name. And don't get me started on modifying Blogger templates.

Hmmm, grumpiness has spilled into Friday.
Anonymous said…
I'm sorry to laugh at your pain....but you wrote exactly what I was thinking (as usual). I was thinking "isn't it like a million degrees in Austin right now? That city is going to smell like stinky feet!!"

LOL!!

PS - I love Jane's socks and nice "ballerina feet".
Ktrion said…
Okay, I really hate to break it to you. The socks look great. It's the husband that's the problem. I know, I know, you're happy, you love him. Too damn bad: he doesn't fit the socks! In fact, maybe you were expressing resentment towards his little feet, desire for a more hobbit-footed hubby. I don't know.

the good news is, you get to keep the daughter and the friend.
Lynn said…
OK, the sock seems perfect, so in the spirit of getting your hubby to fit into the it: overbook him like the typical single parent, feed him more fast food than any human should eat, wait a few years, and then he'll have ankles like mine. Problem solved.
Barb Matijevich said…
I didn't even think about keeping the sock and performing some foot augmentation surgery on my husband! You know, maybe there's a new trend here... padded socks! Kind of like padded bras only with socks! Of course, people might ask, "Is that the new Wonder Sock or are you just glad to see me?"
Damsel said…
ROFLMAO @ "wonder sock or are you happy to see me"!!!!!!!!!