F.O. Tattoo socks

Pattern: Improvised vanilla sock pattern
Materials: Colinette Jitterbug
Amount: Roughly 3/4 of a skein
Needles: 2.0 mm
Finished Dimensions: I've got a European size 39-40 foot, so somewhere along those lines.

Started: 30.10.2009
Finished: 13.11.2009



Some of you might not know that I have a tattoo. A huge one in fact. It starts from my left shoulder, goes all the way down my back and ends on my other shoulder. It's of a dragon and a phoenix playing catch. Around four or five years ago I get the feeling that I really should get a tattoo. I've been wanting one since I was a teenager, but due to lack of money it was always put off. At that time I had just started in a relatively high-paying job (I wasn't even out of the polytechnic), I was between relationships and was just starting to come in to my own as a person. So I decided that it was time for a tattoo. I decided I wanted a phoenix. And it should be around the size of my palm.

As I do with every major decision in my life I started gathering information. How do you care for a tattoo? What's the experience like? Who does good work around where I live etc. I looked at flash art on numerous sites and felt like there had to be more. As if by accident I found Petri Syrjälä, who I contacted with trepidation. He agreed to take me on as a client even though he was doing less and less of such small work. I took him some pictures of phoenix birds I thought were cool and he drew me a sketch and we booked the first session. At the beginning of the session we did a stamp of the bird and slapped it on to my shoulder. It was way too small and I decided it would need to be enlarged to be anywhere acceptable. And it just sort of got out of hand. After that first ten-hour session the bird was done. I was going back for the background anyway and I got this idea of a dragon chasing the bird.

Now, a bit over four years since that first session, the whole tattoo is almost completed. The problem is, the shop is right next to Priima, my most-used provider of yarny goodness. So the time before the last one when I was there, Pete was running late and I was running earlier than I'd planned. So I got some yarn and some new needles and went into the waiting room and started knitting. In time, Pete finished his business and I moved my stuff over to the tattoo side of the parlour and kept on knitting. We laughed about how I was completely and finally destroying all that was left of his street-cred by knitting while being tattooed.

All this is a way of saying I made this completely boring pair of socks that I loved so much I wore them continuously day and night for probably two or three months even after I had walked holes in them and am now thinking about repairing just because I loved them so much.