what goes up

. . . must come down, down, down, baby. 

Let me tell you, I spent some time trying to come up with an idea for a photo shoot for these socks. This is Minnesota, nothing seemed to work with my underwater garden theme. All the ponds still have an edging of lacy ice, and the ground is still frozen in the shadows of the trees. 

My brother had the idea to climb a tree. Not very original, but there are a lot of them out here, and I thought it would look sorta bizarre with my feet sticking out into the blue nowhere. So I shoehorned myself into my summer blue jeans, rolled them up flood survivor-like, and followed my brother into the front yard. 

I'd climbed all these trees before, countless times while waiting for the school bus, or playing ghost around the house on summer nights. In theory, it should be easy to climb them today. I'm still limber, I'm still spry. 

I think my mistake was trying to climb them stocking-footed. I had to be careful, because I didn't want to snag the soles of my socks on the rough bark, and that threw my center of balance off. So anyway, I almost killed myself for the first photo. (Or at least sprained my thumb, I think, trying to hang on.)

But to no avail, my brother caught me on the way down. You know, in the movies, or on tv, people don't seem to fall hard, but I was coming down fast, let me tell you. Like a wool wrapped brick. Beneath the trees, as you can see, is a soft layer of moss. I love moss. I kept my feet firmly planted on it for the rest of the photos. 

The yarn, as I described in a previous post, is my own hand spun. CVM romeldale fiber is perfect to wear close to the skin. I know it's almost the end of April, but I may find use for them yet.

I was inspired to make these socks, by Lynn Vogel's wonderful book: The Twisted Sister's Sock Workbook. Check it out.