Integrity

While editing a work article in a coffee shop, I overheard a conversation between a man and another patron seated a few tables away from me.  The patron - let's call him Tom - a few tables down had found a phone in the bathroom and turned it into the cashier, and the man - let's call him Henry - had come in looking for it.  Apparently, Henry had forgotten it and drove halfway across the island before realizing it was gone. He was frantic.

When Henry came into the coffee shop and retrieved his phone from the cashier, he was so relieved.  He asked the cashier if the person who found it was still in the shop, and the cashier directed him to Tom.  Henry approached Tom and expressed how thankful and grateful he was; Henry's life was on that phone and he had retraced all of his steps in the last hour trying to locate the phone.  Henry pressed Tom for a way to repay his honesty, but Tom assured him that he was just doing the right thing.  Henry was truly beside himself.  I thought he was going to bow at Tom's feet and hug him in thanks if he couldn't repay Tom.  At Henry's insistence, Tom finally gave Henry his business card and reassured him that it was really no trouble at all.  Henry left the store visibly happier.  He even took a moment to wave to Tom before pulling out of the driveway.

I couldn't help eavesdropping and smiling through this whole exchange.  Very rarely do we witness acts of kindness and good in the world.  But whenever I do, I feel like I need to share it with the world.  Don't you?

Makana Socks

I've been knitting and blogging on and off for a really long time.  And as we get older, I think it becomes more critical to live out our dreams.  A long held dream of mine was to design and publish a knitting pattern.  The motivation hit me a time or two, but you know what they say: Don't rely on motivation for anything.  It is fleeting and unreliable.  Discipline, however, is unyielding.  Force yourself to follow through.  When I was a knit blogger, I tried and failed miserably to come up with something.  Fast forward to about a decade later and I rediscovered this dream when motivation hit me in the form of Ravelry and knitters on Instagram.  This time, I capitalized on the motivation to get me started and coupled it with discipline to finish the job!

Makana Socks

I present the Makana Socks.  In Hawaiian, Makana means "gift."  My legacy as a knitter is characterized by knitting things for other people.  Very few of the things I knitted have ever been for myself; I had a tendency to give them away.  But this brings me such great joy.  I love sharing my knitting with my loved ones and letting them know how special they are by giving them something I made especially for them.  My greatest hope is that others share this joy when they make these socks - either for themselves, or their loved ones. 

These socks combine everything I personally love about socks.  I make socks more than I make anything else, and my preferred construction methods are top down with a heel flap.  I recently discovered how to make a rounded toe which suited this textured pattern a lot better than the typical square toe.  The texture pattern itself is stretchy but structured.  Laid flat, it looks like a geometric waffle pattern but reveals mini cables when on the foot.  These socks hold their shape well; I dislike when socks start to slouch after wearing them around the house a bit.  The texture also goes well with a lot of sock yarns: variegated, speckled, solid, self-striping.  I look forward to seeing what people make with this pattern.

This is the first pattern I've ever written for publication.  The process has been so eye-opening.  From the design, to test knitting, note-taking, reknitting with adjustments, photographing, pattern writing, calculating, editing, and actually publishing...!  Whew!  To be able to do all of this truly is a labor of love and I'm more than a little excited to see it go up on Ravelry! 

I hope knitters enjoy knitting this pattern as much as I do.  I've already started another pair in a really fun rainbow colorway, and will probably be working on Christmas socks for my family in this pattern.

Aloha!