jaywalkers!

Look look LOOK! My first pair of socks! I did it! I finished them!


Pattern:Jaywalkers, from Magknits. (A name that makes no sense to me, I realise: in German, I don't think there's a word for jaywalking, because it is so taboo; in Ireland, by contrast, ignoring all lights and zebra crossings is so common that, again, it is just known as "crossing the road." I know I'm home when all the police jaywalk.)

Yarn: Regia 4-fädig Nation Color sock yarn, in colour 5399, 75% wool 25% polyamide

Needles: 2mm Addi metal double-pointed needles

Time sucked: A week. I knitted like a woman possessed. My fingers are falling off of me.

Whoa. It's not true, folks: socks are NOT easy. Particularly not for a reading knitter like me. You see, confession: I'm not a perfectionist knitter. I admire Eunny Jang's utter devotion to detail and process no end, but alas, I have to read while I knit. Or watch a film. Or talk. I can't be counting and watching all the time, my head would fall off with the boredom. So the socks are full of mistakes and wobbles, and many of them were not just learner mistakes, they were avoidable, but was I going to frog? On TINY needles? Hell no.

But look! Look at the gorgeous colourdiness of them! I particularly love their anarchic non-matchiness, and the teeny tiny tip of purple on the toe of one sock. So very cute.

Here are the heels, which caused me no end of grief. Not the turning so much as the picking up stitches: I tried two methods, one the one I knew already, which leaves a slight seam, and one a fancier method picking up slipped stitches, and neither was much fun and both caused sweating and misery and ugh, and there are still little holes in the corners of the gussets, which I'm not sure how best to avoid.



Yes, I do have a birthmark. And weak ankles, to boot.

Neelia is right: handmade socks feel completely different. It's almost as though they were tailored, not knitted: a perfect, stiff fit, tight to pull on and bulky to wear. I do like them, but do I have the bug? Not yet, I think. My hands are damned SORE. But I am kind of bursting with pride, I do have to admit.

I came, I saw... I jaywalked

Ow. Typing hurts. And whose fault is it? Mine, mine alone, of course. It was all supposed to be so innocent: I went down to Fadeninsel to get a set of double-pointed needles, or a Nadelspiel, as they are charmingly called in German. This time, I remembered to get youse a photo, even.



Look at all the bargain yarns and handknits in the windows!



I went in and asked for the needles. Already, I had become sucked in to the cultish world of socks, because I asked for 2mm; the internet says that it prefers a firm pair of socks, and I aim to do this right. And then, I saw the most fabulous, tacky, chain-store-coloured stripey sock yarn on very very cheap offer. And I fell, and tumbled.

I never really understood sock knitting, you see. I knit because it's a fun distraction, and because I like being able to knit gorgeous or silly stuff that I couldn't buy in the shops. Socks, you can buy anywhere. Plus, in the summer I wear sandals and in the winter I wear boots, and I don't have much opportunity for showing off fabulous lacey short-rowey goodness.

More, I am more than a little scared of the cultish devotion that sweeps sock knitters online. Knitty tells you, "Add a little zing to YOUR socks!", assuming that you knock out a pair a month at the very least; bloggers the web over state their hatred of toe-down, their devotion to short-row heels, their passion for Lorna's Laces (all very well if you live in the States), their hunger for new techniques, and good grief, they are just SOCKS. But the Regia Color yarn was so bright and cheery, and so very artificial and un-artisan, that I just had to try...



Jaywalker! And look! I turned the bloody heel! I TURNED it! It may or may not have involved tears, flinging the sock across the room, feverishly googling for instructions, aching fingers and passionate hatred, but... well, I must be hooked, because that's about 12 hours work, more or less solid. On 2mm needles, what's more. That sock isn't just firm, you could stir your coffee with it. I may be a heretic and go for 2.5mm needles next time, because my hands are about to fall off, and perhaps I don't mind having a slightly softer sock after all. That's just the kind of rebel I am.