When I first began knitting socks, I was using yarns like Opal or other mass produced sock yarns that produced nearly perfectly repeating stripes.

Opal Socks

Later, I started using the hand dyed sock yarns, often the ones that felt so fantastic with the cashmere content, and because the yarns were hand dyed, the stripes weren’t always perfect.

Wollmeise Socks

Hand dyed yarn will sometimes “pool” or “flash”.  Pooling is when the colors kind of “puddle” and “flashing” is when the colors create what looks like lightning strikes.

Socks

Look at the picture above.  Just a few more or less stitches will make a difference in whether the yarn flashes or pools or stripes.  On the foot part of these socks, I was making the correct number of stitches to get the yarn to stripe.  On the leg part of the socks, I had either a few more or a few less stitches. There was a bit of pooling and a bit of flashing near the heel, and then striping on the foot, and an even different striping pattern at the toe where the stitches were decreased more.

The first couple of years, when yarn would begin to pool or flash, I would rip it out and start over, using a couple more or a couple less stitches til I got the yarn to stripe just like I thought it was supposed to do.

One day I realized that letting the yarn do what it wanted to do was what actually created beautiful socks with character.  Now, I love it when my sock yarn flashes or pools.  I find myself adding or subtracting stitches just to see if I can get it to pool.  The socks that have pooled or flashed are my very favorite socks, next to my tone on tone, almost solid socks.

The last pooling yarn I was knitting, I was thinking how similar this is to humans.  We try so hard to fit a mold sometime . . to do what people expect of us . . we take something away from our personality here, we add something there . . we try to be something we’re not or we’re afraid if we say or express our inner thoughts, we will not be accepted . . all in an effort to be what others find acceptable.  It’s only when we truly know what we want to be, and have the willpower to do what’s comfortable, that we really shine.

Think about the sock yarn . . I could finagle and manipulate the yarn and make it stripe perfectly and all the socks made from that yarn would look exactly alike.  Or, I can let it do it’s own thing, stripe or pool, and have a unique pair of socks.  Would you rather be what others expect you to be, walk the path others think you should walk, or . . would you like to be a bit unique?  The choice is ours . . individually . . we make the decision!

I think back on my own life and I hardly knew the real me until 10 or 15 years ago.  In my young adult years, I was working and trying to make ends meet, maybe get ahead a little and it was like there was a mold and I had to stay within that mold . . any deviation would make me “different” and then I might not be accepted.  It was only when I realized that living in a big, perfectly decorated house, wearing fancy clothes with shoes that matched, with the perfect accessories . . none of that was me.  I wanted to live in the country, have a big garden, raise a few chickens, grow fruit for jelly, juice and snacking . . those are the things that make me happy.  It took us a while to get here but the biggest step was realizing what we truly wanted.

There’s nothing wrong with living in a fancy house with gorgeous decorating . . if that makes you happy.

Are you happy?  Are you stuck in a rut that you’d like to get out of?  Are you having to give up the lifestyle where you would shine . . just so you can be what others think you should be?  You don’t have to comment or answer these questions but I hope you will think about it.

Being a striper is fine . . but so is being a pooler or a flasher . . so long as you’re a good flasher! 

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