A Year in Socks…

OK, I didn’t knit a pair of socks every month in 2010.  When I look deep within myself I know that it’s alright, I’m not a sock-a-month person.  Unlike Elizabeth, I have lots and lots of socks; my daughter has lots and lots of socks.  I’ve knit a lot of socks in my life.  I like to knit socks; I always have a pair of socks on my knitting needles, just one pair at a time but always a pair of socks in the project bag.  I got all the way through June before the project began to wear thin, we traveled to England and I didn’t finish a pair for July.  That was the beginning of the end of this project for me.

 

Just so’s you know, I’m OK with not finishing the year.  I did spend my first year in our newly renovated house, hanging pictures, figuring out what went in each kitchen drawer, finding a spot to display my mug collection, the list is endless. I posted a photo a day on my art web site.  I traveled to England.  I lost 22 ½ pounds.  I took care of my family.  It was a great year and 2011 is going to be even better, the mind boggles.

I did lots of charity knitting this year.  I’m a very fortunate person and I believe in giving back; I hope to give back even more in 2011.  I’d also like to lose another 20 pounds, exercise a bit more, knit more, travel more and grow less facial hair.  I expect to reach most of those goals and the ones I miss; well it just goes to show you that I’m not perfect.

Retrospective

Pat and I had discussed knitting a pair of socks each month in 2009. I think we made it to mid-January that year, although we agreed we'd still really like to do that. So in 2010 we decided to try again, this time blogging the project. Somehow, that was what we needed. I was motivated by several things: (1) the pure fun of the challenge; (2) a large collection of sock yarn; and (3) the fact that I found out that both my sister and one friend each had more than 15 pairs of socks I'd made for them, but I had only three. I needed to fill my own sock drawer!

I started out strong, managing not only to meet the monthly challenge but also to finish up a pair or two that had been languishing on needles for months or years. Then I started missing deadlines, just by a day. By fall, the thrill had diminished somewhat; finally, Pat and I both agreed that we'd come close enough, and that it was supposed to be fun. I tried to make the November sock, but it didn't work out as planned. I have all year to fix it, so that's on the list.

January: green socks, rainbow stripes pair finished -- 2
February: Afghans for Afghans socks and a series of sock-knitting lessons on the A4A knitalong blog; another languishing pair finished --  2

March: Socks that Rock; green and yellow socks finished -- 2
April: blue socks and contemplation of stash -- 1
May: purple cables -- 1
June: solstice socks (flew away to a friend just in time for December 21) -- 1
July: Afghans for Afghans; 3 worsted pairs, 2 pairs using a double strand of sock yarn -- 5
August: wild card; I finished two pairs in progress, so actually knit more than one pair -- 2
September: golden socks -- 1
October: we made mittens instead
November: no socks, but hats for 6 homeless guys
December: crash and burn, illustrated by the fact that this is the first post of the month

Total pairs knit: 18, 9 of which stayed here with me


I learned: blogging is fun and easy; knitting to a challenge is entertaining; and having a lot of wool socks is wonderful. I already knew that there's no sense in continuing to push yourself to do something that's supposed to be fun once it turns into a stressor and that a project is much more fun if you do it with a friend..

Two Left Feet has a new project starting January 1. Not socks this time, but no need to change the blog title, because we do, indeed, still have two left feet.