Over the past weekend, when I was in Washington, I worked fairly diligently on a sock. I cast on on the bus on the way to DC, and by the time I got to Frederick, Maryland, had half of a cuff done. By the time I'd gotten to DC, I had enough of a tube done that while it could be mistaken for many things, it wasn't unthinkable for it to be considered a sock.
A sock is really great for this kind of trip, especially when one is single and is spending time in restaurants and places where you need to do something while waiting for food or other people, but you don't want to read.
What surprised me about the sock this time, though, is the amount of attention it attracted from other people. A hostess at the restaurant where I had brunch Sunday morning looked over as I was knitting, and asked if I was knitting or crocheting. Her mother crocheted, she said, and she'd wanted to learn how to knit, and wondered if I could show her. I happily obliged, and she commented that I must be really good at it "since you're doing fancy stuff like socks."
I was awfully pleased with myself after getting that compliment, but shrugged it off mostly, figuring that the young woman didn't knit, and thus thought that anything beyond a simple garter stitch scarf would be fancy.
What intrigued me more was the bus trip back to Pittsburgh. Unlike the trip to DC, this bus was packed, and I had to share a seat the entire time. The young woman next to me was likewise interested in the sock; she was a knitter, and had gotten stuck on her first sweater and hadn't done anything in a while because she got frustrated that it took so long.
The woman also was intrigued because she had heard of people doing Magic Loop, but had never tried it or seen it done. Soon enough, though, she went back to studying, and I went back to the sock.
When we got to Pittsburgh, she very innocently asked if I had finished the sock. I laughed, and explained that no, I hadn't, but I was at the point of working on the heel flap, and hoped to turn the heel soon. She shook her head, and said that they took so much work, and after all of that, she couldn't imagine actually wearing a handknit sock because of all the time that went into them.
True to my word, though, I did finish the heel flap, and turned the heel Tuesday night.
Now it's actually resembling a sock:
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| It looks like a sock! Really! |
So what is it about socks? Aside from picking up the stitches on the heel and gusset, I find it easier than most projects because there's relatively little shaping, and it's predominantly knit stitch the whole time. Not all that much different from a garter stitch scarf, except for that whole circular knitting thing.
Why do nonknitters find them so magical?
I've heard from fellow knitters who don't knit socks that it's the skinny yarn & skinny needles combo that puts the off. (I know a few "nothing thinner than worsted or smaller than US 5's" types.) I've heard from beginning knitters that it's the multitude of needley bits sticking out of the thing - whether we're talking dpn's or magic loop it's usually a skill they haven't picked up yet. From non-knitters I typically get "I need to learn how to do that someday" so I guess I've lucked out there.
ReplyDeleteI always try to explain how easy it really is, but I haven't found the magic words yet.
I love knitting socks. After I finished my first pair, I asked, "What was supposed to be hard?"
ReplyDeleteBefore I made my first pair of socks, I thought all people who knit socks were experts that I had no hopes of ever becoming. Finally, I just buckled down and tried it, and it worked! I'm not "addicted" to them, like many others, but I sure do like the way they feel when I wear them. I'm working on a pair for my husband now, we'll see how he likes them.
ReplyDelete