Slow Knitting: The Starry Starry Night Socks That Kept Me Going

I always laugh when friends exclaim "you should sell those on Etsy!" over my projects because I'm pretty sure there is no sustainable business model for selling socks that take three months to knit.

No, slow knitting projects are like stately redwood trees, each ring (or row) imbued with depth and character and carrying echoes of the time in which you knit it—good or bad. The last three months have been tough—but these socks help me get through, and I thank them for it.

1. The Big Sock Bang

I first matched this intergalactic hand-painted yarn (Frolicking Feet in "Starry Starry Night" by Done Roving Yarns) to pattern ("Embossed Leaves" by Mona Schmidt from Favorite Socks) during the crafty high of last Me-Made-May. I was still on maternity leave, starting to feel like myself again and amusing myself by trying to photograph the kids and myself in as many me-mades as possible at a given time. Whee, look at us, we're all wearing things I made! Me!

2. Dark Sock Skies

And then I went back to work, and I was just too busy between nursing the baby all night, getting daughter to kindergarten early in the morning and pumping and work and EVERYTHING to take five minutes to gauge swatch what size needles I needed to use (thankfully the answer turned out to be 0, and not 000 like my last sock-yarn project).

3. From darkness, light

Fall came, and with it, misery. In November I started getting—and staying—sick. Constantly, endlessly sick, in a sickeningly familiar way. Our whole family would catch a mild cold, everyone else would get better in a few days, and I would end up bedridden with what felt like the flu—a high fever, aches, horrible pain in my face, unable to breathe through my nose, so hoarse I could barely speak. Over, and over, and over.

I never really recovered fully, but after 2-4 weeks I would slowly start to feel somewhat less awful ... I'd have one or two days of joy where I could slightly breathe through my nose... and then the cycle would begin all over again. Chronic sinusitis strikes again, just three years after the surgery that was supposed to fix it. SIGH.

So in the midst of this misery, I needed something happy I could do while:

• Lying in bed feeling crummy
• Riding the subway to work terrified a nearby straphanger would cough on me
• Pumping and grimacing (I'm glad they exist but breast pumps are the WORST)
• Waiting in waiting rooms — at one point I had 8 doctor or lab test appointments in two weeks.

So I knit my Starry Starry Night socks. I knit while loopy with fever. I knit while feeling sad I had to cancel playdates and get-togethers and miss work. I especially knit after I had to cancel Baby D's first birthday party — it was the first time we had invited lots of friends over to our new apartment, but I wasn't in a state to host. (I don't think he noticed, because: CAKE!)

I just looked down at those little needles and made one loop after another.

And now they are done, and blocked, and they fit, and I love them. And I am getting good medical care and getting better, and I love THAT.

Too bad I chose a high-contrast variegated yarn for such a detailed lace pattern. You really can't see the embossed leaves at all!

This is my happy toes not caring:

I think the little dude loves them too.

I will say after all that slow knitting, I did need a quick-hit palate cleanser. So I've got a chunky-weight neon green alpaca "Wavy Moss" hat on the needles that I MUST finish by TOMORROW — I've lost three hats in the past month and it is COLD OUTSIDE.

P.S. full Starry Night socks Ravelry details here. It's a lovely patttern, but the lace requires care and concentration and chart-reading, hence the slowness. I made them slightly snug so they wouldn't fall down and sag, and so far it is working a treat.