Inspiration

I've been very restless since yesterday. Part of it is because of my episode with the online orientation for my school district (which I'm still avoiding finishing), part of it is because I'm nervous about starting my job in January and part of it is because I don't have anything exciting on the needles right now. I will work more on the orientation today and prepare myself as well as I can for work in January. Those things are easy to work on. The lack of knitting excitement is another story all together. I don't want to start a shawl, since I'm participating in 10 shawls in 2010 next year and anything I start now won't count. Unfortunately, all the patterns I'm interested in right now are shawls! I have a lace scarf on the needles that's been hanging around my closet, trying to guilt me into finishing it for ages, but it's not very fun to work on. I did a few rows of it today and was bored almost immediately.

I decided that I needed to come up with a knitting goal that is personal and just for me. I wanted something that inspired me and had no time restrictions on it. For a while now I've been wanting to challenge myself to take a knitting book and make every pattern in it. I have a ton of knitting books here, but only a few would be suitable for such an endeavor. After perusing my library, I decided that I want to take the Knitted Socks East and West Challenge.

This challenge, which I have entirely made up myself, consists of knitting all of the socks in Judy Sumner's beautiful pattern book, Knitted Socks East and West. I have never been inspired by a knitting book like I have been inspired by this one. All I have to do is crack open the pages and I'm instantly lost in the beautiful photography and interesting commentary. There are thirty wonderful pairs of socks here, using distinctive Japanese stitch patterns. There are several new stitches to learn, all of which look exciting. I have really wanted to get into sock knitting, and this seems like the perfect way. I will be learning all about sock construction while creating some beautiful and unique pieces.

This challenge will be very loose. There are only two rules:

1. I have to knit all the patterns in the book
2. I have to knit them in the order they are presented

I will take as long as I want to do this and I won't try to power through all the patterns right in a row. I will be knitting loads of other things in the new year besides my challenge socks, so I wont get burned out on the project. This is a very long term goal.

I already have the yarn for my first pair, Konnichiwa. I hope this will be the perfect way to get myself out of my knitting funk and cure my restlessness. I'm excited to get started!