In Oslo

In Oslo, the sun will rise at 8:50 tomorrow morning, and set at 4:06 in the afternoon. That's less than eight hours of daylight, for those who don't want to do the math.

Only people who are used to such long, dark, cold, dull nights could stand to knit such long socks.

This is the cuff for my Traditional Norwegian Socks for this month's Sock Club. Just the cuff. And it's over four inches long. Just the cuff.

Did I mention that it's a sport-weight yarn (Dale Falk) on Size 1 needles? It takes a very long time to knit four inches of 76-stitch rounds on size one needles. Traditional Norwegians must have had really good indoor lighting, or else they only knit in the middle of summer.

I have barely started this sock and I'm already bored out of my mind. I'm about to get to the interesting part - the patterned band - and then the whole rest of the sock is boring. But not boring enough - you still have to follow a chart to decrease the leg appropriately.

And the cold part? In Oslo, they're expecting a high of 39 tomorrow. We're looking forward to 13 here. So maybe long socks make a certain amount of sense. I can't believe I'm looking to friggin' Scandinavia to dream of better weather. But our socks are more fun.

When River Knits started Sock Club, I promised myself that I would knit every sock, in order to force myself to try new things and avoid falling into a knitting rut. And I've nearly made good on that - I haven't finished the cotton socks from Sensational Knitted Socks, and I didn't start a pair of Cookie A. socks specifically for Sock Club (I was already working on Monkey and Pomatomus), but I've made one of everything else - even the beaded socks and the Dreaded Nancy Bush pattern. It's going to be harder to do that this year, but I'm determined to stick with it. Let stoles and shawls be the things I give up and rip out - socks are always useful!