down by the sea, on a blanket with my baby

down by the sea, on a blanket with my baby socks

I bought this yarn nearly four years ago when I was a freshly minted knitter determined to knit socks. I remember walking into the knitting shop shyly, as I always did then, because it seemed everyone there knew one another--I was forever interrupting the jovial shop conversation by being a stranger among them--and even more importantly, they all seemed to know what they were doing. I had only this semi-abstract notion that my knits and purls could somehow form socks. Of course I pretended I knew what to do and picked from among the few skeins of sock yarn I could find, which were in the sale bin, and now I realize there were probably whole shelves full of the stuff if only I had known where to look or, you know, just gotten up the courage to ask. I picked this blue variegated yarn, which is not my style at all, so I must have been pretty desperate to make socks to have picked it up in the first place.

I took the yarn home and excitedly cast on a sock, but being a new knitter meant that even though I wrangled those double-pointed needles, I had no idea about laddering, so I ended up with tell-tale loose lines down my sock and had to rip out the whole thing.

I tucked the yarn into my stash and forgot about it until earlier this year. I decided that even though it's not my style, I wouldn't mind it if I toned down the variegation, so I paired it with a dark blue yarn for the heels, toes, and cuffs.

These socks were months in the making, simply because I tossed them aside for other things and then when I finally finished them I couldn't be bothered to weave in the ends. They sat in my knitting basket* until my knitting frenzy, when it became an urgent matter to finish these before the cold weather set in.

I'm glad I finally did finish them because they're warm and I actually do like them. Sure, they aren't really my style, but the yarn tells the story of the knitter I once was--unsure and shy but daring enough to try--and I'll wear that as a badge of honor.

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What yarn tells your story? 

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*I imagine it's somewhat like the Island of Misfit Toys in there, only a basket of almost-finished things.