I set myself the challenge of knitting myself a pair of socks each month this year to replenish my sock drawer and to make sure I knit something for myself that I love – you really can’t beat hand knitted socks. However, the sense of loss when a sock mysteriously disappears or meets a tragic end is magnified when that sock is hand knitted. I still have the single sock left from a pair I took on holiday last year, the other I imagine having an adventurous secret to be life in the Alps, where I think I lost it.
3 months into my challenge I am facing such loss again. This morning I was putting away the laundry and there was one of my beloved Fountains socks in the basket. These were the socks that reignited my love of sock knitting and that were knitted through a memorable journey this January – yes THIS January.
However, my beloved sock was hardly recognisable, rather than lovely heathered yarn knitted in a pretty lace pattern, I was faced by a felted lump of a sock, bearing little resemblance to its former self.
My response; to yell the name of my partner, who responded to my cry and my coming down the stairs and brandishing said felted sock at him was:
‘it managed to get into the dryer’
Well, there you have it.
My intrepid fountain sock had taken on a life of its own. Much travelled in its knitting, the wanderlust had gotten the better of it and rather than wait with the other more pedestrian socks in the washing basket for a gentle wool wash, it had forged ahead and clambered into the washer with the bedding. No doubt battered by that experience, and with the determination of a climber suffering oxygen deprivation, it had somehow managed to keep pace with its larger and more agile pillow case and sheet washing companions, and reached the summit of the tumble dryer. The tumble dryer however was a step too far for my over achieving sock and now it lies abandoned on the slopes of the mending pile whilst I hope for inspiration to answer the question ‘is there anything I can do with this?’
In the meantime – I’ve searched my leftovers to see if I have enough yarn to knit a new companion for my remaining fountain. The knitting equivalent to a saviour sibling perhaps, and it’s tight, but I may just make it…
and perhaps I should start knitting socks in threes…