MRS. MINIVER'S PETULANT SOCK.

Ellen dropped a few stitches and refuses to pick them up again, partly because she can't remember who the sock was for in the first place. Ellen says it was possibly a 'wait and see who it fits job' which, it would seem, it is!

Ingrid in Waterlooville tackled the petulant grey sock. She explains what happened..

"I was thinking about relationships and how two people can become very interdependent on one another. Also about what we bring to a relationship. There is a geometry problem called Mrs. Miniver's Problem that is about over lapping circles. It has a basis in a story....

is reached when the area of the two outer crescents, added together, is exactly equal to that of the leaf-shaped piece in the middle. On paper there must be some neat mathematical formula for arriving at this; in life, none.

The sock pattern lent itself to this idea rather well, as instead of finishing the toe, I knit another heal and up the leg, so it would be a metaphor for a relationship between two people. I interpreted the idea of the circles into knitting by making the circles 3-D, turning them on their sides and making staggered transitions rather than a venn diagram idea. I wanted to make the transition between one sock and the other pretty obvious so I used the contrasting yarn, and also (in somewhat of a stereotype I admit) made a female sock. Actually while I was making it, it was more about the relationship between the origional sock maker and me, si I made the second sock to be the one that I would wear (that is to say an emerald green sock with a frilly cuff).

It is perhaps a warning not to get too hung up on one another or you might not have enough of yourself left to keep adding anything to that relationship. I rather like that nobody can wear it. That it's something that is generally thought of as a practical garment, but I've been able to make into a piece of impractical art. I think it might be part of a series."

Wow...Ingrid....thank you so very much for these lovely thoughts.