yes…i’m studying…sure I am…

Because I have a blinding cold and I’m supposed to be doing this

instead, i’m doing this:

These are socks for solstice 2008 (how’s that for a headstart?!) for my father-in law. As I have blogged before, my father in law is a big fan of the handknit socks. Since he doesn’t seem to discern between the award-winningly ugly and the subtly pretty, i’ve decided to make him terrible garish socks on purpose for this year. this is as garish as I could find in my stash. I’m sure he’ll love them.

Since I’m keen on wasting time that should be spent squishing biochemistry into my snot-filled brain, I will tell y’all the story of the evil socks first seen here.

My friend elise has thrown herself full force into veganism. She is very involved in all things vegan, including forsaking yarn that comes from animals. Even when I was at my peak of *hardcore* veganism, i still was (and am) okay with wool. This means that I have never knitted with anything but wool. I hate synthetics and have had no need to use any ‘new’ or ‘fancy’ fibres, since wool has always done everything that i needed it to. Anyhoo. In November, for Elise’s b-day, I decided to respect her anti-wool stance and make her a pair of socks that reflected her beliefs. So I went out at bought some cotton ease thinking that I’d whip her up a pair of cabled footies (since cotton ease has a similar gauge to the ones i’ve made in wool). So I started knitting.
And I started cursing.
I HATE COTTON. It hurts my hands. It doesn’t have memory. You can’t spit-felt your ends. After weaving in the ends, they still stick out awkwardly. The yarn doesn’t stick together. I hate everything about it. EVERYTHING.
after many painstaking hours, I finished the stupid *&%# socks.
for all their torture, they were pretty.

prettiness aside, i was so sick of them. i was in such a rush to get them out that I blocked them at work and laid them next to my space heater in hopes of speeding up the drying process to just get them the frick out of my life (not nice things to say about a gift, i know).
and of course, karma bit me in the a$$.

i burnt them.
seriously. BURNT them.
so i started re-knitting them.

denver helped.

but even he got bored.

eventually they were done. again.

no burn marks.

moral of the story: “cotton sucks”.
or maybe “it’s don’t rush things, even if they suck”
or maybe it’s “focus on biochem instead of wasting time on the crafting blog”

who knows really.