I can tell this will be the new game this summer. I’ve gone full throttle with the whole dumb thing, much to Little Man’s delight and confusion.
Here are the dumb socks. I have also knit another pair of even dumber socks, which I’ll show you in another post.
These are actually my Copycat socks. I copied the pattern off a pair of store bought knee-highs my sister-in-law was wearing. These are a few years in the making since I
lost the second ball of yarn for quite some time.
The pattern:
Size one needles, about 8 stitches per inch gives you a medium sock.
I used a Double Start cast on for 70 stitches. (Nancy Bush, Knitting on the Road. See a tutorial here.)
The basic stitch pattern is:
Round one: k8, k2tog, yo.
Round two: knit.
Knit a basic heel flap, continue the stitch pattern across the top and pick your favorite toe. I used the standard k2tog, ssk.
The sock yarn is from Sandy’s Palette.
Personally, I love them.
As for the whole “dumb” thing, I’m going to try the humor route with this one. Words like dumb, stupid and shut up have been favorites of Little Man’s lately. Some of it is from school, obviously, and it’s every kindergartner’s job to see how far he can go with certain words. (Believe me, he’s tried them all. Dumb is tame compared to what he let loose the other day).
Aside from what he picks up on the bus, a lot of it has surprisingly come from books we’ve read…. Superfudge? It was a favorite of mine as a kid so I grabbed it from the library, but wow, the put downs really fly! We love to read here, and Little Man will sit and listen for ages to just about anything. I still love Fudge, but it is a bit of a bummer when it seems that every book written is full of name calling.
Now, I’m not naive. Kids have been calling each other names for as long as there have been kids*. And I do believe that dumb, stupid and the like have their purpose. It just seems that when I compare The Secret Garden to Spiderwick (both of which are great stories) it’s a small handful of putdowns vs. dozens of them….
Not sure where I’m even going with this now. It’s late, I want to go knit. My point? I’m tired of shut up and stupid and dumb and all that jazz, but I’m going to play the game and try to have a bit of fun with my kids to get my point across. Which is why Little Man was totally confused today when I asked him if my new socks were more dumb, less dumb, or equally as dumb as my Copycat socks. And then I went upstairs and laughed like a crazy lady.
*Just yesterday, Laura Ingalls told Nellie Oleson to shut up in
“On the Banks of Plum Creek.” 🙂
Knittymama 
They’re beautiful! AND, I’ve learned over time that there is no telling or reasoning with anyone younger than about 25. Even then it’s a stretch, but trying to use logic with a 5 year old I hear is a pointless venture. 😀
Oh boy. You’ve got your hands full with that one. 🙂
I really love your dumb socks too. Great pattern.
I read a book earlier this year where a teen boy took to using certain four letter words all the time, even at the dinner table. Once the mother started doing the same thing, especially in front of his friends and teachers, he stopped. I love that kind of “parenting with humor”. Good luck with the boy and the socks look great.
Good luck with the dumbs…
Those socks are really cute!
I love the image of you escaping upstairs to giggle. I do that a lot. Along with eating chocolate with my head in the kitchen cupboard in case the children hear me 😉
Parents exist to confuse,bewilder, & embarrass their offspring. It’s karmic justice for labor & sleep deprivation. Just wait til you get to Pa Ingalls talking about “injuns” and you have to go into lengthy explanations about how American Indians are not how Pa is describing them but at that time white settlers did have some legitimate fears of American Indians. Of course the fears were because the white settlers were not treating the American Indians well. Yeah good times are coming our way.
I hear you about the ‘naughty’ words. My kids are making up words now to push the limits. “Bunky” is one of them. Sometimes they’ll say ‘bunky’ and laugh and laugh like it’s a joke, but when they get mad they’ll say ‘You’re a BUNKY.” It’s the tone that makes it inappropriate.
The put-downs in Super Fudge might be easier to talk about as he gets older. A few put-downs, like in LHOTP, are easy–you can just say “Oh, my! That wasn’t a nice thing to say!” and breeze past. When it’s a part of the culture of the book it becomes more difficult because it’s less isolated and more pervasive. As a child gets older, they can discern it more on their own. They also understand that saying ‘shut up’ to someone once is once thing; having it a part of your daily vocabulary is another.
BTW, I loved Super Fudge, too. I think I read it in elementary school.
Cute!
I love your dumb socks, and thanks for sharing the pattern! Goodness knows I need to cast on for another pair of socks like I need a hole in my head, but has that ever stopped me before? No!
Right now my sweet little 4-year-old girl is obsessed with joking about stinky feet, burping, and flatulence. I’m on the “parenting with humor” boat for sure! I guess it’s either that or walk the plank, huh?
You should totally cast on! They are perfect for knitting around small children. A bit more interesting than plain socks but not enough to mess up when you have to go stop someone from dumping a pound of flour all over the kitchen floor. Not that that happened today…:-)
The socks are great!
At our house, faced with the inevitable “shut up”, we worked on substituting “please be quiet.” Surprisingly, when they were younger, it worked. Now that they are teens – well – you know.
Lovely socks 🙂