I Don't Do

Disney on Ice. Milk in coffee. Patience. The glad suffering of fools. Hand knit socks.

Especially hand-knit socks. The idea of wearing wool on my feet invariably calls to mind the aunts in Dylan Thomas' "A Child's Christmas In Wales." The aunts who "always wore wool next to the skin" and "gave mustached and rasping vests that made you wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all." Give me some nice store-bought cotton socks. I'm not quite a bag for a buck at the five and dime type, but I will cheerfully hand over $5 or $10 at TJ Maxx.

Further, the process holds no appeal for me. I've heard the drill. The merits of a short row heel. The fiddly bit about gussets. The satisfaction of Kitchener stitch successfully completed. The woes of second sock syndrome. It all fails to quicken my heartbeat. When bloggers start flirting with Sock Mode, I click over to another blog. I figure if I'm going to knit that many stitches, I want a sweater. Or at least, as Clare and Diane (both sock knitters) have pointed out to me, the sleeve of a sweater. I expected to wander through the rest of my knitting career blissfully using sock yarn for afghan squares and fingerless mitts.

When the call went out from afghans for Afghans for the Spring 2009 Campaign, I fully intended to let February go by. Baby blankets in March; that's what I was going to get behind. Socks for babies? Actual socks? Actual hand-knit socks? Actual hand-knit socks as in not booties? I don't think so.

I don't do socks.

Of course, baby stuff is small. Were I to contemplate sock knitting (not that I was), baby socks might be something I would consider. Not a lot of stitches in a round, if the round only has to make the circumference of a baby's leg (not that I care). Not a lot of rows, either. Unlike their heads, babies legs are not disproportionate to their overall size (not that I've been checking).

Then a4A sent out a second letter. Dang it.

I'm still not doing Disney on Ice.