Nancy Bush & Folk Socks: My brush with greatness

It's amazing how long it takes to regain your equilibrium after something as monumental as Sock Summit. Or perhaps I shouldn't be amazed... after all, it was pretty wonderful.

(It may also have been all the coffee I drank.)

I promise I'll stop blathering on about it, but wow: I got to enjoy half an hour over a beer and some sock knitting with Ann Budd and Nancy Bush, the two women I credit for me being a sock knitter at all, let alone being a professional in the industry. I just hoped they weren't judging my technique.

Nancy Bush wrote the seminal Folk Socks. This book is the reason I knit socks.

In addition to a collection of attractive and interesting designs, the book contains a history of sock knitting, and a fairly detailed technical analysis of sock construction, including all sorts of heels and toes. It's a book I keep going back to as a reference, and as eye candy. I bought the first edition shortly after it was published in 1994. (I think people think I'm exaggerating when I say I've been knitting socks for 15 years. I'm not, honestly. I bought my first yarn for socks from a store that closed in 1996.)

I watched another instructor approach Nancy at the teachers' dinner at Sock Summit and ask her to autograph a very dog-eared copy of the book... my first thought was "why didn't I think to bring my copy", and the second was "wow, hers is as well-loved as mine". Nancy herself remarked that she's seen (and been asked to sign) many very well-used copies.

The best news is that book is being updated and reissued this fall, and I can't wait to see it.

(What I didn't want to say to Nancy is that no matter how much I love her book, she is also somewhat responsible for my obsession with sock and feet sizes. All the patterns in her book are in one size, and as I worked through the book, it became somewhat of a frustration to me, as a non-average-footed knitter. Don't let this stop you from buying the book, though. It's a masterpiece.)