The joy of socks

Today has been an odd, bitty, drifting sort of day, because I’m worried. I’m worried because just as I finished yesterday’s post, I learned that my younger sister is ill and in hospital for tests. 

She lives a long way from us, but close to her children, who are keeping us, her sisters, updated whenever they learn more about her condition. I know she’s in the best place and being well cared for, but still I’m worried and I’ve been finding it hard to settle down and concentrate.

So I’ve drifted.

I drifted on to the computer and sorted out the mini-avalanche of email which has been coming and going for the past 24 hours.

I drifted round the house, tidying up after DH’s return yesterday, but he has been too busy dealing with a client’s urgent problem to be able to stop and take my mind off my worries.

I drifted back to the computer to try to catch up with a few of my favourite blogs, but I’m afraid my heart wasn’t in it and my mind was definitely elsewhere.

Finally I drifted downstairs again and my gaze fell on my knitting. Usually I knit when the TV is on. Knitting gives me something to do with my hands and part of my mind, while the rest of my mind follows what’s on TV. To be honest, half a mind is as much or more than a lot of TV programmes deserve.

This time I didn’t switch on the TV.  Instead I just sat and knitted and worried about my sister and prayed for her and those who love her and those who are caring for her and gradually, as I knitted, I stopped worrying quite so much.

Knitting can do that for me. The gentle, repetitive action is soothing and doesn’t demand so much attention that you can’t think at the same time. Even better, knitting is productive. The worse thing about worrying is that it is so darned unproductive, such a waste of time and emotional energy. Yet, when someone we love has a problem, it’s very hard to stop ourselves worrying. So, if you can’t help worrying, sit down and knit while you worry, and if you want to feel really productive at the end of it, knit socks.

I just love knitting socks. It was DD, my knitting guru, who first introduces me to the joy of circular knitting and especially to the joy of knitting socks. It was she who gave me my first balls of funky sock yarn and my first circular needles and taught me how to use them. I was instantly hooked.

Putting on my first pair of hand-knitted socks was a revelation. They fitted my awkward feet perfectly and were so blissfully comfortable that I didn’t want to take them off. After that there was no stopping me. I knitted socks for myself and DH. I knitted socks for my sister and our daughter-in-law and now I’m in the throes of knitting socks for DS. The only thing that stops me knitting socks for our three grandsons is the fact that their feet are growing so fast that I could never keep up.

Knitting socks satisfies almost every need I have in a handicraft. Socks are small and light, so you can put your knitting in your bag and take it everywhere. Socks also take much less time to knit than sweaters or cardigans, so you never get bored or daunted and feel like giving up. Yet socks are complex enough to give you a sense of achievement and the warm glow of self-satisfaction that comes from being told how clever you are to be able to knit them.

There is an endless supply of wonderful sock yarns in every possible combination of colour and fibre, so that each pair you knit seems quite new and different. Finally, and this is the truly wonderful thing about knitting socks, you need never run out of people to knit for. In this era of sweatshirts and fleeces, not everyone wears sweaters or cardigans, or even hats or scarves, but everyone I know wears socks, and, believe me, once you’ve worn hand-knitted socks you want to wear them again and again.

So as I sit and knit and worry, at least I know that my sitting and worrying will result in warm feet for DS, and for me a renewed awareness of the importance of the people in my life and how very lucky I am to have them to worry about.  


Image via Wylio