Emergency Socks

Emergency Socks?  What are those?!

They might not be what you think – they’re not socks that need to be knitted for a last minute gift or if you’ve run out of socks to wear in your sock drawer.  Emergency Socks are the ones that save your sanity when you’re out and about – the socks that keep your hands busy and your mind calm as knitting is much more productive and soothing than scrolling on your phone.  Every sock knitter should have them!

I’ve been talking about Emergency Socks on the blog for a long time now and it’s high time they had a post all of their own.  I first mentioned them in a post back in 2019, although I just referred to that pair of socks as “emergency car knitting pair of socks”.  I’ve always taken my sock projects out and about with me, the idea being that I would have something with me that I could work on in case I was away from home and found myself with time on my hands.  It was usually something that I was working on at the time that I didn’t mind leaving in the car so that I could pick the bag up if I was going to be sitting in a waiting room, at a poolside for swimming lessons (as my girls were small at that time), passing time in the car before the end of the school day or even just going over to see my Dad for tea.  They were all quite used to seeing me with knitting in my hands!

During Blogtober in 2021, I wrote about replacing the Emergency Sock bag in my car and it’s at that point that I became very intentional about what type of socks I would knit and what would go in the bag.  I wouldn’t just grab whatever was to hand on the way out of the door any more, but this would be a specially packed bag ready to go at any point.  Many of us have bags like this packed for other reasons – having a baby, hospital visits, office bags, unexpected overnight travel stays – and I think that every sock knitter should have one for their socks too!

 

What goes into an Emergency Socks bag?

Well, whatever you like, to be honest!

This is what mine looks like at the moment.  The contents will change as the socks get finished and the snacks get eaten, but the basic contents stay the same.

You can see that it’s quite simple and that’s a deliberate choice – an Emergency Socks bag isn’t your main project bag, it’s just something to take along to keep you going for (usually) a short space of time.  Sometimes you might find that you’re out for longer than you thought but most of us don’t knit a whole pair of socks in a few hours or even a day, so unless you’re close to finishing, you’ll probably find that you don’t need much.

I’ve had a few Emergency Socks bags over the years and this is my current one; what you carry can change with your circumstances and you need a bag to fit.  This is a small project bag that’s big enough for what I need but not a huge extra bag for me to carry.  This fits nicely into the storage box of the car where I leave it most of the time, and it’s small and light enough to grab to take with me if I think I need to.  Along with my yarn, I’ve got a couple of Emergency Snacks – here I’ve got Nakd bars* which I really like and don’t go off if I’ve not eaten them within a short space of time.  Sometimes I’ll have a bar of chocolate, sometimes one of those little wrapped rectangle biscuits that you get with a drink in a cafe.  It doesn’t matter what it is; just something small to nibble on if you’ve been stuck for a while and there’s no chance of anything else to eat.  I’ve got a little pouch for stitch markers, my sock needle (this is a brand new ready-to-go bag so I’ve not cast on yet), and a box of dental floss.

Ha!  This is not so that I can be checking my teeth between rounds, but because the floss cutter is excellent for cutting yarn.

I read about this trick years ago during an online conversation about taking knitting on a plane.  This is an ongoing conversation, and the answer always seems to be that it’s down to airport security.  UK hand luggage guidelines state that knitting needles are allowed on planes, but we’ve all heard tales of knitting being taken off people going through security.  Wooden needles, needle tips stored in pencil cases, knitting obviously in progress are all suggestions to help but at the end of the day, it’s down to the person with the official badge at the scanners.

Anyway, back to the dental floss.  You can get tiny pairs of folding scissors to put in your bag but I prefer to carry the dental floss box; it works as well as scissors, it’s not counted as a blade if you find yourself somewhere where that will be an issue – and I’ve also got it to hand if I’m out somewhere and get something stuck in my teeth 🙂

You’ll notice there aren’t any DPNs in my bag in the photo.  That’s because I make sure I’ve always got my sock on the circular needles before I take it out of the house (I’ve chased DPNs under seats on trains before, it’s not fun) so that I keep what’s in the bag to the emergency minimum.  If I think I’m getting close to the point where I’ll need my DPNs or a long circular needle (sometimes a better option as there’s less to drop), I’ll pack those before I know I need to take the bag out again.

The yarn that you can see in the photos is Laughing Hens Super Sock yarn in shade 21 Celebration.

This pair of socks has long since been finished and a few others have taken its place and been finished too – Emergency Socks are actually a great way to get through pairs of socks!   In the past I used to take patterned socks out with me and occasionally still do (you’ll see a pair of my Ryegrass Socks in the photos below), but mostly I just work on a pair of Basic 4ply Socks because there’s no stress over picking this simple sock up and putting it down.  After all, Emergency Socks are there to keep you occupied during slow times when your attention might be needed elsewhere quickly, so something with a complicated pattern might not be best idea!

Here’s where my Emergency Socks have been over the years …

 

Sometimes it doesn’t go to plan – and this is a good reason not to keep your best needles in your project bag.  This was my first “intentional” pair of Emergency Socks …

And this is what happens when you’re not careful about putting the bag away properly in the storage box when your daughter gets in the car after school …

You can read the story about this poor needle here:  Why won’t this thing shut?

There are so many occasions when you could get “one more round” in on your sock knitting and you’ll be surprised how quickly you get into the habit of picking up your project bag along with your keys, phone, glasses or whatever else you usually leave the house with.  There’s no limit to the number of Emergency Socks bags you can have so there’s no reason why you can’t keep one in the car and one in the house to take out with you too.  Sometimes, I just stuff the ball of yarn and the sock into whatever bag I’ve got if I can only take one bag, but I don’t leave the house without my sock!

I’m also going to add here that it’s not something that we like to think about, but there are other times when you need your Emergency Socks, too.  I don’t think you can underestimate the importance of having your knitting with you to help you cope with grief or with situations where you are likely to feel anxious or out of control, and a ready-packed project bag is one less thing to think about.  You don’t have to actually do the knitting but just knowing that your bag of yarn and needles is to hand brings more support than you might think.

 

What if I’m not comfortable knitting in public?

It’s true that knitting when you’re out and about can attract attention, but I’ll be honest and say that in all the years I’ve been doing it, I’ve never found it a problem.  When my Dad needed to go for lots of hospital appointments, I always knitted in the waiting rooms and found it funny that after a while, people would stop watching the TV and watch my hands instead – calming benefits for everyone!

Children in particular seem to be fascinated by knitting if they see you out and about, and I think it’s always a good thing to set an example to the younger generation – we need to be encouraging new crafters!  But what about those who say, “My Grandma/Mum/Auntie used to knit”, or “Can you make something for me”?  They seem to be the comments that cause the most irritation, but my view is that they are just conversation starters and we’ve got used to not speaking to other people when we’re out and about.  You’ve sparked a (hopefully pleasant) memory for someone of a loved one knitting, and they want to tell you.

Sometimes people will say it as an insult but my usual answers are always, “She must have been a talented woman” or “That’s a nice thing to remember” and your knitting becomes a shield for the words to bounce off.  “Can you make something for me?”  “No, but I can give you a website link to make your own …”  Oh, and always with a big smile.  I’ve decided that no one can resist a sock knitter with a big smile 🙂

For the most part, I find that people don’t take any notice of what I’m doing.  Someone said to me once, “How do you know that people are looking at you unless you’re looking at them?” and it’s very true.  I’d much rather look at my knitting or out of the window on a train – and carry on with my knitting!

 

You’ll have seen lots of my finished Emergency Socks pairs on the blog over the years – here’s a small selection!

Just in case you’re interested in the yarns they are:

Top L-R: West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply in Winter Icicle; Laughing Hens Cozy Sock 4ply with All Wool That Ends Wool rainbow micro mini stripe; Ginger Pink hand-dyed 4ply.

Middle L-R: John Arbon Exmoor Sock in Peggle; Stripey Cat Yarns hand-dyed in Mermaid’s Tail; helical knit sock using Regia Mosaik Color shade 05560 with The Knitting Goddess hand-dyed purple 4ply.

Bottom L-R: West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply in Wildflower; West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply in Autumn Leaves; Burrow & Soar hand-dyed yarn shade Bower.

 

Emergency Socks kit list

You can see what’s currently in my Emergency Socks bag in the photo above, and below is a quick list of suggestions for your own bag – I’m quite sure you can come up with more ideas that work just right for you!

💜  Project bag – big enough to fit everything into, small enough to be able to carry around easily.  I always choose a bag that doesn’t matter too much about getting dirty or squished into the car.

💜  Sock yarn – of course!  Your bag only needs to be big enough to carry one ball (skein), and if you are using a hand-dyed yarn that came as a skein, wind that into a ball before you start.  I know this is stating the obvious, but your bag needs to contain everything you need to knit without having to think about it.

💜  Accessories – stitch markers, safety pins, scissors or other cutter, tape measure and any other essentials for your knitting kit

💜  Accessories pouch or bag – I strongly recommend using a pouch or bag to carry everything in so that you’re not rootling around in the bottom of your project bag or dropping things that have got caught in your knitting.  It doesn’t have to be anything special – a purse you don’t use any more, a small organza drawstring gift bag, even an envelope will do.

💜  Emergency snacks – now, you might be someone who doesn’t snack but I’m going to recommend that you put something in your bag anyway because you never know when you might need it.  It doesn’t have to be something sweet like chocolate or a fruit bar, you can pack nuts or whatever else you like to eat.  It’s just something to give you a quick boost if you’ve been out for a long time and you feel you need it.

💜  Other ideas – a trolley token, a small amount of cash for parking or vending machines, loyalty cards if you always knit in a particular place, spare pair of specs if you need them and have spares, spare house or car key if you know you’re likely to rush out without them, you might even feel you need to keep painkillers or extra meds in case of long waits … the list is endless!

 

I hope this post has inspired you to set up your own Emergency Socks project bag to take out and about with you!  Do let me know about yours, and what you keep in it – you might well have other items in yours and it’ll be good to have the suggestions in the comments so that we’ve got a comprehensive list! 🙂

Here’s to lots of sock knitting, wherever you go!

 

Winwick Mum Sockalong badge available here: Winwick Mum Sockalong Badge

Teeny Tiny Socks pattern – free pattern and tutorial here:  Teeny Tiny Socks

 

 

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