We knit socks for many reasons.
It might be simply to keep our hands busy or because we want the best-looking sock drawers. We knit them to bring us joy or to distract us from thinking about things we would rather not allow our minds to dwell on. They help to pass the time whilst we are waiting - and we spend a lot of our time waiting. Waiting for news, both happy and sad; waiting to be reunited with someone; loved ones who have been on journeys, children who have been at activity events, long-awaited babies being born ... there are so many reasons why we do so. And sometimes, we wait to say goodbye.
I first met Dr Sarah Holmes, a palliative care doctor at the Marie Curie Hospice in Bradford, at a Knit Now Awards day a couple of years ago. A strange place to meet a doctor, perhaps, but she was being recognised for the incredible work she has been doing through our yarn community to raise funds for Marie Curie. It all started off as a desire to knit socks for each of the patients in the Marie Curie Hospices around the country (so naturally, that was something that would attract my attention!) and I was so pleased to be able to send her socks from the Yarndale Sock Line to help make up the numbers, knowing that they had been knitted with love for someone who needed an extra woolly hug.
Last year, Sarah's Flower Power Fund raised money through limited edition hand-dyed yarns, and it was so successful that she is doing it all over again this year - but this time, there are patterns for each month too! When she asked me if I would like to be involved, I didn't even have to think about it. Whether we have used Marie Curie's services directly or not, there are not many of us who have not been touched by cancer in some way during our lives and I was glad to have the opportunity to do something to contribute.
Here is my contribution. These socks are called Amory, which is an old German name meaning "brave".
I thought long and hard about what a sock design for such a purpose should look like. I didn't want anything too complicated (and trust me, these might look complicated but really they're not!) as often our minds need to be occupied but not to the exclusion of all else. I wanted a stitch pattern that was easy to keep track of, because sometimes we need to put our knitting down before we are ready to. I wanted something that would suit both men and women, because there is no restriction on who we love enough to knit our socks for.
Read more »