Handknit Socks and Other Essentials

Socks: I’ve finally finished a pair of socks I started for my dad last fall during all the back and forth to Texas. On Christmas Eve, I wrapped up one half-knit sock and gave it to him in a restaurant after a crazy long day at the hospital with my mom. We were so late getting there that the place was about to close. We were exhausted, but it was nice to be together and to give (and I think to get) half a sock. In the ensuing mayhem, I knit to the heels and then let the socks languish. I recently dug them out and gave them feet. I plan to surprise him with them tomorrow, just because.

Poetry about Socks: If there is a better poem about socks than Pablo Neruda’s Ode to My Socks, I don’t know it. I’ve posted it before. Here is the ending:

The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.

Books: The Overstory may be the most important novel I have ever read. It has fundamentally altered my way of looking at the world and my understanding of my place in it. It’s Narnia for grown-ups and with more at stake. I plan to keep reading it over and over until I die. I hope you will read it too if you haven’t already. Tell everyone you know. It’s a big deal.

13 Comments

    • You were so right about the book, Kat! Thank you for telling me how much you liked it. That helped me persist despite my initial sense of disorientation. It’s incredible how unfamiliar the world of the book felt at first given that now it’s so deep in my brain it’s hard to imagine not having it there. It is a great one, for sure. I’m so glad you like the socks! The pattern is Fit Well Socks by Amanda Cathleen Morgan. It’s on Ravelry. The pattern instructions have a few hiccups, but for anyone who has knit socks before, it’s not a big deal.

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