Initially I was going to try to build a metaphor about socks (specifically Noro striped socks) and life and memory or something like that. But then I realized that that metaphor was going to be far too strained, and, really, the fact that I got kind of caught up in knitting a striped sock was actually probably not related to some larger realization about Thanksgiving and life.
No, Thanksgiving was Thanksgiving. And socks are socks.
Thanksgiving had travel: totally uneventful and smooth.
It had family and friends: for the most part the same, except for some minor illness among both groups, but nothing that did more than briefly postpone a get together, or make for sleepier than normal (perhaps?) babies. And there was a bit of mild worry about friends abroad, which... well, read this.
It had food: YUM. Both the regular Thanksgiving food (my sister took over pie making from me, and did a fantastic job--as she put it, she didn't know you were supposed to be afraid of pie crusts, so she just... made them, and they were great), and some very tasty takeout Vietnamese food I had one night in Chicago.
It had shopping: fairly uneventful (fortunately, comparatively), but somewhat productive. I also continued this today after getting back to Toronto. I didn't mean to other than just basic stuff, but then I noticed that Linens n' Things was having a going out of business sale, and so I acquired a paper towel holder (hopefully this will stop Ziti from attacking and destroying rolls of paper towels), Simple Green, a kitchen scale (which will probably be used as much for yarn) and... uh, this. (Hilarious cat/roomba videos forthcoming [if Ziti gets up the nerve to go near it].)
And it also had a bit of knitting. Actually, a lot of knitting, in a way, because I got completely and utterly caught up in something.
Over the summer, when Mom and I went to the Stitches Midwest yarn market, I grabbed a ball of the new Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn. I thought it was a fairly subdued thing, in greys and browns, but then I looked inside.
Not so subdued, right? I rewound the yarn into two approximately equal cakes--they really let you see the colors of this, don't they? I was careful to try to make sure the cakes started at the same point in the wide color repeats of the Noro striping... so that in principle, at least, the two socks that will come from this will more or less match in their striping. I don't care if they're not exact, but I do like it when things are more or less the same.
I had intended this to be my conference travel knit, and I faithfully brought a ziploc bag with the yarn and needles with me to Pennsylvania last week. But, I got essentially nothing knit, because I had reading to do on flights, and the conferences were busy, and... well, no real knitting.
But sitting around on Friday after our second trip to Costco that day (totally uncrowded, incidentally! no particular deals, I guess, so no need to go then), I got to work. I'd managed a toe, and had then decided to do them not just plain, but alternating between working from the outside and inside of the cakes in order to make them stripe more narrowly and sharply. I didn't like my first stab at this, and frogged it. But once I started again, it was like I couldn't stop, just because I find the way the colors are coming together to be completely amazing.
Here's a preview. I've got the first one almost done (although not the heel--I'm doing afterthought heels because I think I can better preserve the striping that way (or chose to do simply a solid colored heel).
These may end up being the craziest socks I have ever made, despite being in some ways the simplest--just stockinette, no crazy lace or cable pattern. Just stripes.
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