i remember a little while ago knitting quietly in a collective somewhere, i dont remember the venue, but we were talking socks, and nancy bush, and how much we liked them, and how many of them we wanted to knit, and lyns looked up and said ‘we should have some kind of personal sock club’. mrs sockvictim was there, and knitterjp, and a few others i cant remember, and everyone agreed it was a great idea.

towards the end of 2010, the wonderful knitterjp posted this idea on the morris and sons group on ravelry, and the rest is well, history. a little group meant to be for knitting with friends has become bigger than ben hur, as word of blog and mouth travelled to all corners of the globe.

i am in two minds about this turn of events. the huge explosion happened while i was overseas, and when i came back, all the socks i’d voted for, including my own nominations, had been out voted. there was one pair of nancy bush that actually arent a favourite of mine for some reason, and no cookies. i pouted. i felt like our little idea had been taken over and wasnt about ‘us’ anymore. and it wasnt. in the scheme of things, thats fine. its lovely to see so many people interested, although people do seem to struggle with the concept of no rules. i understand its a knit-along of sorts, so people think we’re all supposed to knit the same thing, but as far as i know there are no rules for KALs either.

i dont have any qualms breaking the rules. i like the idea of deadlines to help me get some socks actually finished this year, but my time is too precious to be knitting patterns i dont like. im fussy about socks, and sock patterns. and i bought yarn in the US especially to match, so i decided to just knit what i wanted anyway. i packaged up 6 yarns, loosely chose some patterns, and put them in a bag:

the knitting police may come and drag me off to knitting purgatory, i do not care. oh wait, there are no knitting police.

i hated those shurtugals. stupid name. stupid left twist. yeah im antsy about it, and i dont mean to offend anyone, but i cant help how i feel. i felt a gazillion times better when i frogged them, and i switched back to a pattern ive been meaning to do for ages. in one night i did this much ‘hedera’:

i really like cookie a patterns. ive done a few now and sometimes they get complicated but they always turn out right (if you read the pattern properly). kai meis are my favourite socks ever. the only ones of hers i dont like are ‘rick’. just too hard, sorry cookie. but these ones are coming along just nicely, mostly because i dont have to look at the chart. we like that in our sock patterns.

the next ones in the club are nutkin, and thats easy. i love the pattern, and i bought the perfect yarn, koigu of course:

im looking forward to those. after that, things get a bit difficult. i was going to use this claudias hand painted for leyburns

but knitabulous tells me there is no stretch in that pattern, and thats not good for a person with actual calf muscles. so im open to suggestions there, or they can go to the bottom of the pile.

i really wanted to do the nancy bush’s that lyn nominated, Unst, and i bought this yarn in NY especially:

its a wool/silk blend and will be just perfect. but they’re long socks, and that might be where my PSC for 2011 comes to a grinding halt. if it doesnt, i really want to make wasabi peas (my own nomination) with this colinette jitterbug in morello mash,

and then im seriously thinking baudelaire with this blue wollmeise.

i quite like the boyfriend socks that have been chosen for S6, but im not sure about me and cables in socks. ive managed to never knit anything with a cable. can i keep that record intact for another year? (no i am not mad, im actually quite sensible. im already big enough without adding to my bulk with cabled garments, thanks very much). again, sock fiends, open to suggestions here too – what sock pattern best befits the blue wollmeise twin?

im interested though, how do you feel about S6, and KALs  more generally? am i just a mean spirited knitting grinch perhaps? (i already know the answer to that). or am i right in feeling like life’s too short to knit what you really dont like?

k xx