Process vs. Product

I didn’t get home from the airport until almost midnight so today was my recuperative day.  I find as I get older, I really need a day to recuperate after travelling.  I used to think it was silly to need a vacation after a vacation; but now I view it more as a gradual re-entry into the “real” world.  So I slept in, knit a bit, napped a bit, then knit a bit more.  I finished a pair of socks that I have been working on for a long time and it got me thinking about whether I’m a process knitter or a product knitter. 

During Sock Summit I ran into a lot of people who proudly claimed that they were process knitters, wearing their declaration like a badge of honor - as if actually wanting a pair of socks to wear after knitting for hours and hours was ignoble.  It made me wonder which category applies to me.  Ultimately, I don’t think the process vs. product distinction is either/or, but rather more of a continuum.  I think I’m probably somewhere in the middle.  I enjoy the process and giving myself a challenge - I don’t just knit simple things that I can churn out quickly (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  But, I do eventually want to have something to show (and show off) for all of my efforts.  After reading the story of the socks, you decide.

I started these socks way back in January.  I cast on while flying to a conference for work.  I knit on sock number one on the plane, sitting out by the pool (it was January in Florida and I’m from Wisconsin), and during most of the sessions (I won’t even start on how Muggles react to that – that’s a whole post unto itself).  Finally, on the flight home I finished the first sock.  I was so excited; I put it on then and there.  Now, the whole time I was knitting this sock I had been thinking, “this thing looks awfully big,” but I kept knitting.  I rationalized my continued knitting by reminding myself that I have “generous” calves and while the sock did look huge, I am by no means petite.   I donned the sock.  It felt a little loose.  My brain countered, “well, you are used to socks that are too small and binding, so a sock that actually fits you feels different.”  I wasn’t convinced.  I decided to wear the sock home to see how it behaved.  Well, by the time I got to baggage claim the thing had bagged out and ended up slouched around my ankle.   OK, so it was too big. 

I ripped the whole thing out and started over on smaller needles – knitting them two at a time.  After ripping an entire sock, there was no way I was knitting this pattern a third time.   I then set the socks aside while I worked on a number of other projects.  I picked them up again as plane knitting in May and worked a little further, but when I got home I had a couple of garments I really wanted to finish, so they were set aside.

Then, I decided they would be the socks I would work on during Sock Summit.  They are made out of a really gorgeous hand-painted yarn so I thought they would be perfect to show off.  The downside – it’s hard to chat with people and keep track of the lace pattern.  The pattern itself isn’t challenging, but somehow I managed to have one half of each sock on an odd row (not patterned) and the other half on an even row (patterned).  Could I have fudged it and kept going?  Probably.  Did I?  No.  I spent a good hour sitting outside of Voodoo Donuts with my crochet hook pulling out stitches and laddering them back up.  Then when I got to my class that afternoon, I figured out I had screwed them up even more.  I kept at it.  Now it was personal – this pattern was not going to get the better of me.  Luckily, this class was lecture style so we weren’t working on any other projects and I could keep up the battle with the socks.  Finally, I got it sorted.  Work continued on the socks swimmingly.  On the flights home last night, however, I managed to goof up the toe shaping.  So today I tinked back, re-knit the toes, and finally finished them. 

So – what’s the verdict, process or product?  Actually, it doesn’t really matter.  I have a beautiful pair of socks that fit me.  I enjoyed making them.  I enjoyed the challenge of figuring out what went wrong and correcting it.  Now I’m looking forward to starting a new pair of socks with a new challenge.  Process?  Product?  I’ll take both.