Secrets and Socks
My father had interesting ways of encouring my brother and me to interact with the world around us. One way was the oft repeated refrain "learn something new every day". When we got older this took on a more structured setting: at dinner time we would have to list three things we had learned that day (and we couldn't get away with saying "today I learned that I don't like my math teacher". Believe me, I tried it.)
These days, I find myself saying the same thing to my kids (although hopefully not as often as my dad did!) I find that the longer I am away from school (and I finished my master's degree in December of 2002 so it hasn't been that long) the more I miss the structured opportunity to learn new things. It doesn't help that I work with teenagers who, of course, are not particularly interested in the joy of learning.
This is a long-winded way of saying that I have learned something about myself recently (nothing earth-shattering, but interesting to me nonetheless). I have discovered that I am very finicky/fickle about Knit-A-Longs. I have signed up for a few of them in the last few years and have mixed success with staying involved.
If the KAL has too many people signed up or requires too many hoops to jump through I just don't have time to wade through it all (the MS3 is a good example - way too many people posting very chatty emails, I'm over 5,000 emails behind and have no intention of catching up). But I'm still working on the project - I like the idea of the surprise.
If the KAL is too small then there's not enough there to keep me all that interested (plus I think I feel a little bit shy sometimes).
This year's Sockapalooza is a good example of too big/too many hoops. Other than making my socks and interacting a little bit with both of my sock pals I haven't paid any attention to the rest of the knitalong, and I'm discovering that's fine with me. I enjoy the 'making something for someone else' part, and I enjoy the 'getting a package from a stranger' part too.
All this leads me up to the fact that I have finished my Sockapalooza socks and have put together a modest package of the socks and a few little gifties for my sockpal. Looky-looky:
Finished Monkey socks in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock on size 1 bamboo needles.
Close up of the pattern - I love the way the colors worked out with this texture.
NAME
Socks and goodies that went along with. (In the interest of full disclosure I have to say that only two of the Soak packets went with the package; in the process of wrapping everything I set one of the packets down in a puddle of water on the table and I didn't relish the idea of the cardboard packet of soap leaking all over everything, so I left that one out). The highlighter tape is for marking rows on a chart, and the chocolate is Scharffen-Berger which is tasty and local to the Bay Area (plus, who doesn't like chocolate?)
Like I said it's modest but hopefully my sockpal will enjoy. The Hubby is going to take it to the post office today for me and it should get to my pal early next week. And then I can start checking the mail for the socks that someone is making for me!
These days, I find myself saying the same thing to my kids (although hopefully not as often as my dad did!) I find that the longer I am away from school (and I finished my master's degree in December of 2002 so it hasn't been that long) the more I miss the structured opportunity to learn new things. It doesn't help that I work with teenagers who, of course, are not particularly interested in the joy of learning.
This is a long-winded way of saying that I have learned something about myself recently (nothing earth-shattering, but interesting to me nonetheless). I have discovered that I am very finicky/fickle about Knit-A-Longs. I have signed up for a few of them in the last few years and have mixed success with staying involved.
If the KAL has too many people signed up or requires too many hoops to jump through I just don't have time to wade through it all (the MS3 is a good example - way too many people posting very chatty emails, I'm over 5,000 emails behind and have no intention of catching up). But I'm still working on the project - I like the idea of the surprise.
If the KAL is too small then there's not enough there to keep me all that interested (plus I think I feel a little bit shy sometimes).
This year's Sockapalooza is a good example of too big/too many hoops. Other than making my socks and interacting a little bit with both of my sock pals I haven't paid any attention to the rest of the knitalong, and I'm discovering that's fine with me. I enjoy the 'making something for someone else' part, and I enjoy the 'getting a package from a stranger' part too.
All this leads me up to the fact that I have finished my Sockapalooza socks and have put together a modest package of the socks and a few little gifties for my sockpal. Looky-looky:
Finished Monkey socks in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock on size 1 bamboo needles.
Close up of the pattern - I love the way the colors worked out with this texture.
NAME
Socks and goodies that went along with. (In the interest of full disclosure I have to say that only two of the Soak packets went with the package; in the process of wrapping everything I set one of the packets down in a puddle of water on the table and I didn't relish the idea of the cardboard packet of soap leaking all over everything, so I left that one out). The highlighter tape is for marking rows on a chart, and the chocolate is Scharffen-Berger which is tasty and local to the Bay Area (plus, who doesn't like chocolate?)
Like I said it's modest but hopefully my sockpal will enjoy. The Hubby is going to take it to the post office today for me and it should get to my pal early next week. And then I can start checking the mail for the socks that someone is making for me!
4 Comments:
Alright, I'll start checking my mailbox for your package *wink*. You know I love it already and your pal would love it too.
You know, it's funny - I would probably enjoy the MS3 pattern, but not so much the other bits.
I have found I also really enjoy more intimate connections than big group foofaraws. That being said, you can find neat connections inside big group foofaraws: finding my friend Lauren via the "Team Clapotis" at the Knitting Olympics is a good example. I've made some interesting connections I'm enjoying via Ravelry as well, which will probably end up being the Ultimate Big Group Foofaraw.
(Yeah, I don't know where I got the word "foofaraw" either).
Your Sockapalooza socks are on their way all the way from Canada.
I too haven't paid much attention to the knit along and it was a refreshing change.
I hope you enjoy your package!
I can promise you, with out doubt, that your sock pal LOVES her socks. :-)
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