“I’d have sworn that with time thoughts of you would leave my head.
I was wrong.” — Neil Diamond

Marin said today that “the Harlot is to knitting trends what Oprah is to book sales” and she’s not far off on that. You see, on Wednesday Stephanie posted about Vintage and people started snapping it up. I ordered it in the Pinot colourway yesterday. The funny thing is, I’m not usually one to go out and buy things just because someone makes them popular. I don’t buy books that Oprah endorses, I tend not to follow trends that Stephanie does either. This isn’t a case of that even though it might seem that way on the surface.

What happened in this case was that Stephanie’s blog was the means through which the gods finally caught me. When I went to the website and saw these socks I swear they were daring me to knit them. I don’t back down from a challenge. Especially when it comes in the form of knitted socks. This might sound like crazy-talk, but I get the sense that these socks are the embodiment of the Dionysian spirit. It’s not just the subject matter. It’s because of the arrogance I sense coming from these socks. They know they are magnificent but at the same time they also know they’re going to make you let go of your fear and inhibitions, make you get into another mindspace and do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do in order to get them done.

Now, I don’t need to commit hubris against the knitting gods and have things come crashing down on my head, but at the same time I realize there’s a lot of work involved here and I refuse to let these socks beat me. I tend to see it as a way of putting my skills to good use serving a higher purpose, whatever that turns out to be.