Two Solitudes

There was a quick disscussion on Ravelry yesterday in one of my groups about Sock Madness and who we should be cheering for.  

Sock madness is 4 teams of about 50 people each, knitting their heads off making more and more complicated socks.  The early rounds are everybody, and as the rounds complete and the socks get harder, the moderators judge who should continue from the pool of who is done their socks.  At the end of the month, on the last sock, only 1 knitter, the most successful knitter, usually the fastest knitter knits alone with all  her teammates cheering her on for sock supremacy.  

I love watching this kind of thing but I would never join it.  By now everybody will have noticed that while I might not shy from knitting hard things, I do have an affinity for earthy simple yarns and garter stitch.  There is such beauty and dignity in those things.

I knit plain socks.  I have knit a few that were mildly fancy, cables,  

I have knit at least 1 published pattern.  

but just one.

I have played with all sorts of variations of toes and heels and cast ons and cast offs.  It is not that I am unsophisticated, as it may appear to the initiated, but rather that it is a deeply personal choice to do and choose the simple. 

Mostly, its plain socks.  Ordinary yarn, but I do have some standards.  Like some colour changes just for a the thrill of watching what will appear.

Stuff like this, Regia World Circus Colour.  Plain.  Simple.  

Socks are my safe place.  You know, that thing you can knit and not have to think, that place where you don't have to step up to anybody else's expectations of what is fun to knit, what someone who should be knitting.

Socks, just ordinary socks that please me beyond reason are mine and mine alone.  Mine to knit, mine to gift, mine to wear.  Just mine and they are safe and right on any occasion and I don't know anyone anymore who questions my knitting them.  Well, all right.  Very very few people out here in the real world do.  Socks have  become part of me, part of who and what I am.  

Much as it is a choice to proceed more simply, it is also a need.  My own personal two solitudes.