I have issues.

I have this pile of projects sitting next to me on the couch... We have some gloves, a shawl, a hat for Jessi, and a fern glade hat. They are all less than 50% complete (well, the shawl may technically be around that) and my logical reaction to them was "I need a new project". My problem with knitting is that there is an inevitable boring part of every project. The part where you have to do stockinette stitch for 6 inches, or the part where ribbing takes over, or the part where you have nearly 200 stitches on the needles and one row takes you forever to get through.

So in typical Brie fashion, I decided to do something less boring and more challenging because I find that when I have something challenging to work on, I'm more inclined to work on the boring parts of projects. Cue sock knitting.

I've always had sort of an aversion to knitted socks. It's not because they're not beautiful to look at, and I'm sure a joy to wear and knit. It's mostly because I feel like socks are meant to be abused. Socks are something you change frequently, something you walk on, something you don't lament when you lose one. So to put hours and hours into a pair of socks didn't work in my head.

But on Tuesday I was at Ally's new place in San Jose and we opened her yarn bin to search for a needle she was going to let me borrow, and sitting there in the midst of bright red cotton and blue rivers of silk, there was this beauty. Perfect green, perfect texture, perfect amount, perfect twist. Ally says "Yeah, I don't know what to do with it, yet." I say "Yes, obviously." which probably came off as snotty but it was in fact a very understanding statement. I understand having a revered skein that just hasn't realized its full potential yet. The skein that sits and sits and patiently bides its time until...
It speaks.


In this case, Ally's green beauty spoke to me through these (rav link) golden fancies by favoritefibers. And then in a moment of clarity, I saw the beauty of knitted socks.

Everyone has those days, the days where you sit with a blanket on the couch and your book (yarn, movie, reality tv show, laptop, newspaper) and you don't want to wear your slippers, but your socks aren't quite doing it. Enter: knitted socks.

And while Ally's green yarn spoke to me, it needs to speak to her in order to become its true self, so it thoughtfully nudged my thoughts toward the prettiness I have in my own stash.


You may recognize her from the beginnings of the Wurm hat, but she clearly needs to be those socks instead (don't worry, I have a different yarn for the Wurm hat because I love it so, just not in sport weight yarn).

So, in conclusion. Ally's yarn told me it wanted to be socks, and then my yarn wanted to be socks, and now I've cast on a fifth project and am knitting with needles that feel like toothpicks.

And I still love pink.