Biting Off More Than I Can Chew

If my fiber pursuits have a theme it's "biting off more than I can chew" or possibly "jumping into the deep end while still needing water wings". This can provide merriment for others. And occasionally maybe even encouragement, since I don't always end up being fished out of the pool coughing up chlorinated water.

I've been reading knitting and fiber blogs for a couple of months now and decided to start my own as a record of "what was she thinking?" for myself if no one else, and also to share the aforementioned merriment.

To clarify the size bite I take: I finished my first pair of socks last week. This week I signed up for the Blue Moon Rockin’ Sock Club. Just sounds slightly crazy right? Wait for it... I have been working on this pair (yes this exact same pair) since April of 2003. Well, ok, mostly I've been leaving them in the WIP bag/box - it isn't quite as bad as if I'd been actively knitting them for nearly 4 years. But I found them alternately difficult and boring so they waited. A lot. I should call them Lady in Waiting socks except the colors in the self-pooling yarn (it didn't really pattern) are not what springs to mind when one thinks of Ladies in Waiting. See what you think.


And I doubt they'd be done now if they hadn't been toe up and done both socks at once on two circulars which meant that when I finally lost it on the leg I could just rib for a bit and then quit. Unfortunately that means the leg is shorter than the foot and the foot is too long so I'll have to find a home for them elsewhere with someone who will love me enough to act happy to get them. Oh, and I've got, somewhere, a sock started lo these many years ago when I was in college (that's kind of a lot of years ago now - so far back into the last millennium that we weren't really worrying about the new one yet) still unfinished because I lost interest in it somewhere if I didn't rip it and send that yarn off to charity years ago.

So why then have I found myself oddly obsessed with socks and sock patterns and sock yarn for so long and to such a degree (particularly in the last few months) that I'd join a sock club? Beats me. I blame the friend who knitted me a pair of socks a couple of years ago for Christmas, thus enlightening me to how lovely it could really be to wear hand knit wool socks. And Stephanie and Wendy and all the other amazingly prolific sock knitting bloggers have to take their share of the blame as well.

I tell ya, blog peer pressure is a terrible thing...