I have a problem

Actually I have lots of problems but just one I want to share tonight.

I finally finished the #*@*!& spiral socks for Goldisox that had been bugging my behind for months and the sense of accomplishment was exhilarating. It's been so long since I'd finished anything (okay, so I finished a book and some proposals but I'm talking knitting here) that I was really quite full of myself for a few hours.

And then reality (bane of my existence) hit and I started calculating exactly how long it takes me to make a pair of simple socks. Big mistake. At the rate I knit, it will take me about five years to make the gift socks I'd planned to make for the 2009 holiday season. Even if I knit them with super-chunky yarn on telephone poles.

Why am I so slow? I know I don't put as much time into the process lately as I'd like (hand issues and time constraints) but when I do I swear I poke along like a little kid meandering down a dirt road in the middle of the summer. I actually STOP after every round and admire my handiwork. What's up with that? Am I so exhausted from all that stockinette that I need a breather every 48-72 stitches? Am I so fabulous a knitter that even the most basic stitch deserves applause?

I think you know the answer to those questions . . .

And then it hit me that I'm putting the same damn expectations on my knitting as I put on my writing. I'm playing the comparison game and trust me when I say nothing good ever comes of that.

Way back in the mists of time when I sold my first book, my editor (the incredible Vivian Stephens) told me to run my own race. Every writer has a natural pace, she said, and honoring that pace will do more for your creative health long term than just about anything else she could think of. She was right. I'll never be the fastest writer in town but I'm still producing 27 years after my first sale.

So why am I torturing myself over my turtle-like knitting speed? I'm actually embarrassed to share my slowness with you guys and you know all my dirty knitting secrets. A pair of socks might take a month of hour-a-day knitting. Maybe more. A sweater? Well, I knit one for Goldisox in a month but that was top-down with chunky Highlander. A worsted weight sweater might have taken me into retirement.

It shouldn't embarrass me. But, damn it, it does. I try to tell myself it's because there's so much beautiful yarn out there and so many fantastic patterns that if I don't ramp up the speed I'll never get to a fraction of them but I suspect there's more to it than that.

I've been working under deadlines for so long now that I impose them on my knitting, the one place where they do NOT belong.

Any other slow knitters out there?

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I forgot to share the LACED WITH MAGIC video. Hope you enjoy it.

The Mystery of the Missing Socks

I can't even blame the washer or dryer because neither of the two missing socks has a completed mate yet.

And at the rate this is going, they never will.

I've been on a sock binge this year. One freaking sock after another. If I'm not at the laptop I'm curled up on the sofa knitting socks like my life depended on it. Cozy, comfy socks but butt ugly. Definitely nothing camera-worthy. Mostly they've been my plain old cuff-down, heel flap, gusset knit-'em-in-your-sleep method that doesn't require any intervention from my brain. (Which is a good thing since my brain has been taken over by work and has nothing left to give.) (Did I tell you I tried to microwave a container of soy milk?) (Do you know how hard it is to wedge a quart of soy milk into a microwave?)(Will I ever run out of ( )?)

Here's a partial list of sock progress:

• Plain white cuff down for Goldisox in Berroco Comfort - worsted
• Plain white toe up for me (love love love Judy's Magic Cast-on)
• Plain heather blue cuff down for Goldisox in Lion Brand Wool-Ease (an aside: of all the different yarns I've tried, he loves Wool-Ease the best. Go figure.)
• Spiral cuff down for Goldisox in Lion Brand Wool-Ease - oatmeal
• Spiral cuff down for me in leftovers from above
• Cuff down for me in something bright and colorful for which I no longer possess labels (smart, huh?) (unfinished)
• 1 Best Foot Forward in Cash Soft DK
  
• 1 cuff down, 7-1 ribbing, in Crazy Colors Stretch (muted manly brown tones)

See the last two? They're my problem children. The Best Foot Forward was going to be for me (hence the pink) and I was very excited about them. I love the pattern, love the yarn, love the color. I don't love the fact that the finished sock, the pattern, the yarn, and the needles have disappeared from the face of my universe. I swear I turned around and poof! They were gone.

And that other one, the manly brown stretchy sock--well, you won't see me posting its ugly face on a milk carton any time soon. I was about to start the toe when it went missing and made the mistake of trying on the stupid small-needled time-waster and gasped in horror and what I saw. I mean, if it looked so stretched out, holey, and horrible on my foot what in the name of Elizabeth Zimmermann is it going to look like on Goldisox's size 11+? It looked so gorgeous on the needles. The ribbing provided just enough textural interest to bump up all of that understated neutrality. I haven't a clue why 7 knits and 1 purl stretches to a wildly unattractive degree while 5 knits and 1 purl behaves itself.

If you have any ideas, please leave them in comments because if I ever find that sock I just might turn it into a parrot toy.

And, trust me, that is a sad end for a sock.