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(“You know, I think I have a problem.”
“Only the one, Jude?”
“I have this difficulty in sorting out what the right direction is. I find it pretty easy to read upside down, back to front, even mirror image, so when I am sorting out something like this hat, all directions seem to be correct. I plot and plan and spend hours working out which way is which but I don’t know until I actually make the thing whether I’ve got it right or not. I knit the side of the hat twice (pretty good for me) and the top at least four times.”
“But, Jude, don’t you swatch?”
“All the time - I agonize over it but it doesn’t seem to make any difference.”
“Oh dear.”
“Still, I’ve been thinking..... Leonardo da Vinci may have had this problem.”
“You’re likening yourself to him now, are you, Jude?”
“No, of course not, but he wrote all his notes back to front and mirror image didn’t he?”
“I believe he did, yes.”
“Well then, perhaps he didn’t know he was doing it. Perhaps the Mona Lisa was actually facing
right - now is that her right, or his right? And of course, Hockney has made a great case for believing that artists in those days used a concave mirror to throw the image they were after onto a wall so that they could see details, so perhaps da Vinci used one of these devices, in which case perhaps she really was looking to her left - or is it his left - or maybe..... well, would the image thrown on the wall still be a mirror image? I mean, it is definitely the mirror image in the mirror but.....”
“Good grief, Jude, you’re baffling me.”
“You’re baffled - think of me, I live with me all the time.”
“ But you know what, Jude? That’s not your only problem, is it?”
“Isn’t it?”
“You talk to yourself, don’t you Jude?”
“Er, yes, Jude, maybe I do.”
“Well, pack it in.”)
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Wednesday 23rd March 2006
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There is a large group of people in the knitting community who specialize in knitting socks. They find it quite addictive. They knit coloured ones and lacy ones, fluffy ones and plain ones, dress socks and bed socks, and they love it.
Why is it, then, that I, who adore knitting, do not feel at all bothered about socks? I know all the good points about the craft. I know they take a minimum of yarn, fold up nice and small to fit a bag or pocket, are very portable for outdoor knitting activities, and that it’s reasonably quick to accomplish the finished article. I appreciate the joy of knitting them for yourself, your husband, your family and friends. After all, everyone of every age wears socks.
I also know that the one recognized downside to them is the dreaded contagion known as SSS or Second Sock Syndrome where, having completed the one, the knitter feels totally unable to cast on for the other - but I don’t even want to cast on for the first. So why is this?
Last night my husband was flicking through the television channels when he came across an amazing programme called “Dog Borstal”, in which dogs with behavioural problems were sent to a boot camp along with their owners. One poor girl was telling how her pooch chewed just about anything and everything and was destroying her house. One day she was shocked to discover that the naughty hound had swallowed and passed a whole and complete sock.
There it was. The reason. That’s why I have no inclination for sock knitting. I must have known it all the time.
There is no nutritional value in a sock.
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