Summer's Coming!

And one of the best things to do when the weather is dry and hot is to wash socks. Here's my mom's sock line, swaying in the breeze. Things are nice and green up here, but I hope we get some rain soon or else I'll be lugging water to the garden. I am thankful it's not UNDER water.

Projects have been jumping off the needles lately. Somewhat, at least. The Helix Mittens are finished, with just a few odd jags of inattention or perhaps another knitting busying herself with the mittens while waiting for a doctor's office to open its doors. I like them, but much prefer stranding.

















Yes, stranding. I turned my small sampler Latvian mitten into a larger Latvian mitten, and have also FINISHED the Sanquhar gloves. They're not blocked yet ... I am entertaining the notion of picking a warm day, popping the gloves on, soaking my hands in warm water for 5 minutes, then going for a nice long walk to block them to shape. We'll see. But the gloves are done, and all 40 ends are happily woven in. And I remembered - halfway through the second '8' that this was the year 2008, not 2088. That would have been cause for duplicate stitch. Botching the pattern on the last tier of the second-to-last finger on the second mitten was cause for frogging. Rippit. I'm glad I discovered it before thinking I was finished with them. And now? If you see a mistake, please let me know. I want these critters to be 'poi-fect'. I even frogged a few times when I discovered I'd switched which color was in which hand.

My only project on the needles now is a red and black twisted hat. They start small, involve lots of twisting, but are nice and snuggly warm. I'm about an inch from binding off on the hat, so the photo is not exactly 'real time', but it does show the beginning. Or close to the beginning.

I keep telling myself that one of these times I am going to wind the colors onto a bobbin, then sit and knit while slowly treadling the twist away. The knitting won't exactly be portable, and it will be a very large mess if I calculate wrong, but it sounds like fun if it works out.

In other news ... we washing the siding on the front porch today, raked tree trimmings, enjoyed rhubarb punch with rhubarb salad, and are pooped.

Time to go wash dishes, and then knit!