stereotypical single woman

I’m a member of Sockapalooooza 4. After stalking the sock swap last year I decided that I really wanted to join this year because I love wearing handmade socks but simply cannot motivate myself enough to finish a pair for myself - other people, yes, myself, no. For you non-knitters out there (that would be 95% of you that read this blog) what happens is that there were sign ups in April (this is all organized by the wonderful Alison and her husband), you received your pal’s info (blog address, foot measurements, color and yarn preferences) about a week ago, and now you’re supposed to blog about your progress on the socks that you make for your sock pal while checking in on the other knitters and your pal anonymously (leaving comments on their blog, sending them emails, you know- cyber stalking them), and then in August you send them their socks, say “hi, I’m the weirdo that’s been stalking you for three months, hope you like your socks”, and (hopefully) your sock pal sends you yours around the same time.

So, yeah, I’m excited to be designing a pair of socks for someone I don’t know. I really like starting new projects. In fact I think I’m going to make some mosaic socks (non knitters - those are pictures of mosaic socks that I stole from other web sites, I didn’t make them) because working the pattern will keep me interested enough to keep going with my sock pals color preferences. The woman really likes pink and purple, and I will admit that so did I, once. They were the colors of the decorations for my first communion party when I was eight - but this woman is not eight, she has teen aged children of her own. But to each her own, so I figured I’d go with her color choices, not complain, and everything would be fine, but the other day on her blog I read

“have a question for the blog…I signed up for Sockapalooza 4, and got my sock pal. She lists her color preferences as “earth tones” — like what? Brown? I am very much a pink-and-purple kind of girl, so I don’t want to knit mud-colored yarn for 2 weeks. What is there that is pretty in earth tones? “

I don’t want to admit it, but I think I’ve slightly taken against my sock pal. Again, I really enjoy color and think almost all colors can be beautiful in the right combinations, but reading her whine about having to be open minded just made the evil child in me really want to leave a comment along the lines of “you think earth colors are bad (and they are so not you color blind freak), you should feel sorry me since I have to knit for your bubble gum pink loving ass.” But I didn’t because it’s not in the spirit of the knit along (and I’m a chickenshit) and everyone else seems so happy to be knitting for their pals. From reading the Sockapalooooza blog it sounds like everyone else thinks their pals are so cool and, well, I just don’t. I tried. I think mine is a saccharine sweet bore with bad taste. So it must just be a fault in my personality that I’m not completely able to get into the spirit of the knit-along. I’ll just have to find a way to make something that both she and I will enjoy, and while that makes the design process harder, it also makes it more interesting.

This is the yarn I’ve ordered - it’s predominately pink and purple, but as a rebellion there’s a few earth tonish colors mixed in as well - maybe she’ll be convinced that there is a place for these colors in her fairy princess vomit colored world. I’m pairing it with some black Knitpicks Gloss I have in my stash, now I just have to figure out the colorwork pattern and I’ll be able to get started.