So, socks.

I’m getting close to finished with the first Trekking sock for dasHusband. If these were my socks, they would be finished, but he likes tall socks, and I may end up needing to buy a second skein of yarn for the second sock.

This is a plain toe up sock, with a short row heel and then ribbing up the leg.

I’ve got a sock book out of the library right now – Charlene Schurch’s ‘Sensational Socks‘ — I am thoroughly infected with the sock bug at this point. There are two wonderful people to blame for this – my beloved dasHusband, and the lovely Teabird.

Here’s what happened – I’m at my LYS, shopping for a knitting swap, and dasHusband is wandering around aimlessly picking things up and putting them down again (mostly where they belong), and asking me what they are. He picks up a skein of Trekking (see above picture), and I glance over and say, “That? Oh, that’s sock yarn.”

Do you remember the Tex Avery style cartoon double take — the jaw dropping, eyes bugging out, tongue lolling Wiley E Coyote astonishment? This is my husband as he says, “You can knit socks?” Then, eyes gleaming like a coyote with a rabbit in its teeth, “I like socks.” The sock yarn goes under his arm. “I’ll get this, then you can make me socks.”

I’d never knit a sock in my life. Never even considered it. Oh, I had a skein of sock yarn in my stash – but that was just a token nod to the knitting gods. I wasn’t a sock knitter.

So, I started to learn to knit socks. I took a class in it, I read sock books, I quizzed my friends, and slowly, slowly a knit a pair of little blue ankle socks.

Then the sock evangelists struck. Well, a sock evangelist. A good friend, a dear friend, a tea drinking , fountain pen using, writing, sock knitting friend, sent me a sock yarn stash. Not just a skein or two – a whole STASH. Turning up unexpectedly on my door step, transforming a bad day into a good one, making me giddy with silly little bursts of laughter, a box full of sock yarn. Dozens of potential pairs of socks. I was head over heels delighted, and more then a little intimidated.

So I knit socks – socks for dasHusband, socks for the Bee – and I started lots of pairs of socks that made it no farther then a toe or a few rows of ribbing before hitting the frog pond. I bought more sock yarn on my own. And eventually, I was ready to knit the coyote eyes, Tex Avery, Trekking socks.

(See above photo.)

Those may look like plain toe up socks, with a short row heel and then ribbing up the leg, but they are really the culmination of a moment in a life full of knitting and love.

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