Wherein I pick up the crackpipe

sock,
originally uploaded by tricoteuse.

I got the cardigan done alright -- the baby cardigan that is not the Hateful Cardigan of Hate, but instead the Somewhat Delightful Cardigan of Delight & Also Done. It's dead cute and winging its way to its recipient, and I no longer fear button bands and all that stuff, so probably breaking down and putting the HCOH away for a while wasn't so bad in the long run, since I got a full cardigan-making experience and really boosted my confidence in my hypothetical ability to complete the HCOH. Except I'm not working on it. I just can't quite bring myself to pick it up and figure out where I left off yet. Maybe I should make my mother a Clapotis instead?

Ah, no. I am incapable of completely abandoning a knitting project in the middle. It will get done, right after I finish smoking that rock pictured on the left.

How is it that just under two inches of the most frustrating knitting I have ever attempted has left me totally addicted to making socks? I'm not even quite done with the ribbing yet! I'm nowhere near the dreaded turning of the heel. I have at least seven inches of stockinette to knit after I finish this ribbing before I get to the scary heel, and yet, after nearly a year of longing to knit a sock, but being utterly convinced I'd never be able to do it, I am almost sanguine about it. I am, after all, knitting with motherfucking DPNs, and I tell you, I thought I would NEVER be able to do that. Ever. Even circulars are still kind of scary to me.

I contemplated knitting flat and seaming, but somewhere in my stubborn knitter's brain, that feels like cheating to me, and anyway, it would screw up the self-striping pattern of the cool sock yarn. And I sew enough seams already (see: cardigans, pullovers, etc.) and goddammit, why not try, fail, and just shrug it off?

So I got a simple sock pattern (the Basic Sock from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Knitting Rules), cast on (loosely! I remembered to cast on loosely!) got all my needles going in the right direction, and started awkwardly knitting. And totally jacked it up, but semi-fixed it, after taking a couple of deep breaths and creating a new mantra:

It is totally OK if this sock looks like ass. Just keep knitting.

And, you know, that worked. Every time I try something new with my knitting, if I can just shut up my inner perfectionist, it's OK. It works. I learn, and the next time, I do better. I made a strategic decision to sacrifice this ball of Opal sock yarn and the many hours it will take to knit it, just for the sake of learning how. Nothing bad will happen if I make the world's ugliest, worst-fitting sock. I'm enjoying myself, I am figuring something out, it just doesn't matter. Keep knitting.

Ladders at the joins? Got 'em. A few extra stitches appearing along the way? K2tog, baby, and keep going. DPN slips out of its stitches and hits the floor with a loud clang? Hold your breath and try to get the stitches back. Yeah, that looks like a stitch. Close enough.

This is so much fun. Once I get these socks done, the perfectionist will come back and demand I make my next pair right, but for now? This is fingerpainting in kindergarten; I'm just here to have fun, learn, and make something that will be beautiful to me, if nobody else.

All you sock-pushers were right. This is crazy good fun, and it does totally get easier once you get the first dozen rounds or so done and the needles stabilise. And sock yarn is, in fact, several orders of magnitude more addictive than crack. I'm not even done with the first cuff yet, and I just ordered two skeins of cashmere from HipKnits.

What? I needed it. Just shut up and pass the crackpipe back over here.