I did some blog cleaning on Sunday afternoon. Too hot to go outside, and too lazy to clean the apartment, blog cleaning seemed like a low key (but productive!) activity.

You might notice some pictures now in the left hand column of my patterns. Woo!

Other little changes are no big deal. But the big thing that I noticed was that I hadn't updated my Sock Gallery since last October. I thought to myself, that's sad. I should add all of the new socks I've knit since October. But my mind was drawing a blank. So I referenced Ravelry.

Oh....

Oh dear....

Uhm...

I haven't knit a completed pair of socks since August 2009. My sock gallery was up to date. From my peak in 2007 of 10 pairs to a slight decrease in 2008 of 7 pairs to a huge drop in 2009 of 3 pairs (including one pair for a baby which really shouldn't count), I've lost the sock knitting bug. There's still time in 2010 to knock off several pairs. I've got one sock of a pair completed and 1/2 of one of second pair started. That could easily be two pairs for the year... that is if I could locate where I hid those socks in progress...

Have I lost the will to knit socks?! This is really a two part problem.

1. To be honest... this past winter, I didn't really wear many of my hand knit socks. (hanging head in shame) I did wear some of them, but they were not my everyday socks. They weren't even special occasion socks. Every now and then I'd think about them and think "oh, I should wear a pair." After a few occasions of my feet being too hot (what?! I need more lace pairs) and my legs getting itchy from wearing them, I just wasn't as interested in wearing them. When you are not wearing your beautiful hand knit socks all of the time, you aren't really inspired to knit more.

2. The bigger issue is in general my knitting productivity has tanked. Looking back at my first years of knitting, I was churning out turns of projects. Not all of them successful or even still around, but I was making a lot of stuff. But looking at my most recent projects on Ravelry, I've only completed three projects so far this year: Thea, a scarf, and a hat. While Thea was a big knit, all three of these were finished by the end of February. Since then... diddly. Clearly having a real job and not being a graduate student is a factor. Another factor is just not being inspired by much. Compared to when I first started knitting and would make anything regardless of whether it would turn out well or if I'd really wear it, I'm much more selective. I don't want to waste what little knitting time (or yarn money) I have on dud projects that go into the sweater box and never return.

What's a knitter to do? I'm not sure. I definitely want to redouble my efforts on Lanesplitter and Kirra to finish them before the semester starts. Maybe I'll take a page from the Yarn Harlot and create a sock of the month club for myself with existing stash and patterns. I need goals.