Knitting!

In January of this year my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It was pretty awful for all of us. I watched my previously strong father wither away before my eyes. The initial appointment with the oncologist told us that his tumor was inoperable, he had a 30% chance of that changing, and our initial course was chemotherapy. This meant that once a week for three weeks (one week off before we repeated the cycle again) he would have to travel to the University of Michigan Cancer Center (about an hour away) for his infusion. I went with him and my mom for most of his infusions. Pancreatic cancer is so often a death sentence that there was no way I was missing what time I had. My dad has since had surgery and they were able to successfully remove the tumor but that is a post for another time.

Now I am typically,being an avid reader, I would just bring a book along with me to pass the time; but anyone who has been through anything like this with a family member knows that it is incredibly difficult to concentrate in such an environment. Quite simply, I could not read. But I knew I needed to find something to do otherwise I'd go crazy with my thoughts. This is when I decided to teach myself to knit.

So, I stopped at JoAnn Fabrics the evening after my dad's first chemotherapy infusion and bought myself a book, a skein of yarn and a pair of knitting needles. Several attempts and YouTube videos later, I was knitting.

Knitting turned out to be exactly what I needed to calm myself through this difficult time with my dad and with the rest of the events in my life as things quickly spiraled out of control. I have since done quite a few projects, including a prayer shawl for my dad, and have picked up many new techniques (thank you YouTube).

One of the things I was most looking forward to knitting when I got started was socks. I am constantly cold in the winter and my feet never seem to get warm so the prospect of knitting warm wool socks appealed greatly to me. Well, it has taken me awhile but I've finally had the chance to knit myself some socks! But it has been an adventure and as of right now, I have one sock, well, that fits anyway.

I have heard from people that you either love to knit socks or you hate them. I wasn't sure where I was going to fall on this spectrum so I decided to start small, baby socks. I figure they are little and cute and if it turns out I don't like it, I won't have wasted a lot of time or yarn discovering this. But I didn't know anyone having a baby so why in the world would I knit baby socks. Then, TA-DAH!, I learn that my college roommate is pregnant and expecting a baby girl. I now had someone to make socks for.

After marveling at the engineering that goes into the stitching of these socks to create toes and heels I had my first pair of socks completed.

I was pretty happy with how they turned out. Now I felt like I was ready to tackle socks for myself. I had found a pattern for a pair of summer socks that had a lace top, making them cooler and lighter for warmer weather. I thought this would be a fun pattern to start with. So I started to knit my socks.

Now, I ran into some difficult as when I was working the foot the pattern said: "Work in pattern until work measures 3" from back of heal when stretched comfortably." This was not particularly useful because a sock that is only about 3" long isn't a very big sock. So I started looking at other people who had made this pattern and comments they had made and discovered that several people used 15 repeats of the pattern for their women's size 9 foot. My foot is a women's size 6 so I thought, I'll try 12 repeats. I tried it on but couldn't tell for sure if this was going to be the right size but I still had the heel to work and knew this would add length (I also managed to snap my wooden circular needles doing this). So I did my heel and finished off the sock. Excited I tried the sock on and:

It was too small. I was heartbroken. I had worked on this sock, my first real sock for myself and it was too small. So I thought, I'll make another one this size and give them to Mini Me because she was eyeing me making this one and liking it. But then I looked at how much yarn I had left and realized I have enough that I could make a new pair.

I'd have a third sock but I could figure out what to do with that later. So I made a new sock this time using 15 repeats and viola!

This sock fit!

Of course, I still have another sock to make but now I'm feeling much more confident in my sock making ability and I love the pattern across the top of my foot.

One sock down! One to go! Still not sure what I'm going to do with that third one though....