Getting started

A little about me to get going I suppose. I am a mom of 2 living in a small town in Oregon. I am a fiber fanatic, we cloth diaper and use wool for covers, and I love to knit, crochet, and handspin wool yarns. (Yes it sounds kind of Little House on the Prairie, but that suits hippie me just fine). So most of my knitting goes to my kids, which is great because they are much cuter models than I am.

Well, for my birthday, I got a giftcard to a knitting and fiber store from my mom (love you, Mom!) and got blank fiber to spin, practice dyeing, and some blank yarn and some knitting books. Small piece of heaven in a box, right? The best part - a book of sock patterns by my favorite designer, Cookie A. I love almost every pattern in it, and the best part is, it would be projects for me - soft, comfy, warm, handknitted bliss for me!

Now I am already borderline crazy, having 2 kids in diapers still, trying to start a WAHM (work at home mom) business out of my spinning, going back to school for my bachelor's degree this fall, and suddenly I get the craziest (perhaps stupidest) idea. I'm going to knit this whole book. I see this Julie & Julia idea unfolding around me, shattered by the notion that, hey, socks take a LOT longer to make than a meal does. And the funny thing about socks is, you need two of them. Well, I guess not everyone needs two, but I certainly do... and these aren't exactly simple knit while half asleep kind of socks.

So I am working out this challenge with myself, it may be a race to see how many pairs I get through in a year, or how long it takes me to do a pair of every sock in the book. Mostly I'm excited to learn new techniques and get some squishy socks out of the deal. Who knows, maybe if my family gets some for holiday gifts, they will learn about the addiction of handknit socks too!

Sock summit is the last weekend in July here in Portland, so I have 2 weeks until my "kickoff" for this project. In the meantime, I'll be flagging patterns, picking out yarn, and finishing up projects so I can have time to devote to this from the start. Maybe, just maybe, along the way of all this craziness, I'll get company from other equally crazy fiber fiends too. :)