socktastic!

The swatch is done for the Secret Sister kal and I've cast on for the first sock.

I chose a bright stripy wool by Regia from my sock stash. While I was knitting the swatch I realised that only time that I wear stripes is on my feet. ( I would be doing myself no favours if I wore them anywhere else as I'm quite diminutive!).

It's also the only part of my bod that gets to wear orange as warm tones near my face make me look quite ill. I think this might be one of the reasons for the popularity of sock knitting: the chance to wear small amounts of something outside of your normal wardrobe and have a bit of fun. I wouldn't normally wear an argyle sweater, but I could fancy some argyle socks; a cabled sweater would make me look too chunky, but cabled socks? they would be lovely!

I do like wearing bold socks*: when I worked at the Playgroup with 3 year olds I made a point of wearing bright socks with either Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet or some other character on them. It was a good ice-breaker with shy children, sitting on the floor beside them and showing them my bright Tigger socks (hey! orange & stripey!). It's very practical too it also means that none of my socks get mixed up with anyone else's in the laundry.
I'm going to get a real kick out of knitting & wearing my bright stripey socks!

Listening to the football last night I was kicking the ground in frustration as we failed to beat Blackburn Rovers in the FA cup 4th round replay. Although we took an early lead, Rovers equalised in the second half and the match went to extra time. What a snore-fest. Allardyce's tedious brand of football is not pretty, or even ugly, just intensely dull, and Rovers managed to numb the Black Cats into a comatose state (and me!) and then nick a winner at the end.
Rovers are now our bogey team, the team that we cannot beat. In the 70s it was Leeds, in the 80s it was Swindon (and where are they now? hmm?). We won more regularly in the 90s, but now in the noughties, it is Rovers. I wouldn't mind so much if they played better football than us, but it is so dull. Effective but dull . AAAargh! (I'm not bitter, honest! It was too dull to make me bitter. Btw, did I say how dull it was? Well, it was dull!)

Everton beat Liverpool in their replay 1-0, and it was quite an exciting match, but one of the more bizarre incidents was some supporters throwing their socks onto the pitch. I can only assume that their cunning Scouse minds had worked out that they couldn't be arrested for pelting people with soft woolly objects! Wonder if they were hand knitted?


* today's socks have Bagpuss on them.