Sock it to me.

I am not blessed with the gift of calm.Although it is mainly filled with abject nonsense my mind is rarely still. Knitting socks is the nearest that I get to meditating. There is precious little argument to be made for knitting your own socks on purely practical terms. Each pair ends up costing at least £6.00, often more, if like me you are a yarn fetishist with a bad merino habit to support. The end result is often bulkier than normal shop socks and the time investment is considerable. Yet knitting socks remains one of my greatest joys in life.
  It is partly down to the yarn. I buy beautiful self patterning yarns from places like www.modernknitting.co.uk or the wonderfulhttp://www.first4yarns.co.uk/. Self patterning sock yarn is a miracle to me. Somebody very clever could probably explain the complex mathematical formula which creates balls of yarn which knit up in perfect fair isle, or a series of beautifully graduated stripes but I remain unmoved. To me it is magic, pure and simple magic. How else to explain the fact that I can sit there, barely concentrating on my knitting, watching tv, chatting, listening to music etc and upon looking down at the knitting in my hands be astounded by the pattern emerging? Magic I tell you, and very probably clever elves.
 The larger part of the joy that I get from making my own socks is the fact that I can do it at all, that I taught my self to do this amazing ( to me at least) thing. I come from a family of crafty women. My Mother used to knit the most amazinginly intricate sweaters from gossamer fine mohair which were sold in high end shops. My beloved Nana was a proper old school knitter. I am the clumsiest woman on earth. Early attempts to teach me to knit resulted in tears, tantrums, not all of them mine, and some seriously snarled up wool. So, although I was, eventually able to cast on and do knit stitch the habit didn't take and I rejected knitting in favour of other hobbies. Boys and cider mainly. Then about 4 years ago a freind started knitting and spoke about her new hobby with such joy that I was intrigued. Tentatively I made a scarf for my husband. I used some lovely Noro yarn and, knowing nothing of gauge or such like, needles about 3 sizes too big. No matter, I was pleased with the slightly open weave texture, thrilled by the yarn and by the fact that I had made this thing. With true beginners zeal I decided that my next project would be bed socks for myself. Yarn and DPNs procurred I set about making a sock. I still have that first sock.It is terrible. I love it. It was a slow process with several hiccups along the way including one where I attempted to turn the heel after drinking a bottle of wine. I did it though, with a little help from my lovely friend Jenny and the pride and sense of acheivement was like nothing I'd ever felt. I think it was the fact that I'd done something which I'd previously considered to be the provinence of other, cleverer, more gifted people. I felt like I wasn't the rubbish child who couldn't be shown how to knit. All that from one red and purple striped sock. Magic I tell you...
  So now, having battled the affliction known in our house as sock blindness( whilst in the throes of sock blindness I would temporarily forget what I was meant to be doing) I am now in the position where I can knit a basic sock without having to look at a pattern.Even the tricksy heel turning bits. All by myself and everything. As mentioned, my mind wanders, I ponder nonsense and write songs whilst the yarn goes round and round in what I guess is actually a spiral. At some point I forget what I am doing and experience actual calm. Then I come out of my trance and find myself looking at a finished sock.
Seriously clever elves.