The calendar tells me I better get moving on these socks or I won’t be finished by the end of the month. I know the second sock moves along quicker. I’ve got all the notes from the first sock written out and I’m just ticking off each row as it’s completed. Unfortunately I am my own worst enemy when it comes to distraction. To overcome this I’ve got my knitting in my lap and I must complete a couple of rows before I let anything pull me away.
Yes, I’m sure someone will ask, that toe is on stitch markers. My quirkiness requires that I kitchener both toes at the same time. Yes, I’m admitting I’m weird.
The color in this photo is all wrong. Here is a link to a better photo of the color. The color is called brambles.
Anyway, the July project for Camp Loopy was announced the other day so I picked a pattern and ordered some yarn. The requirement for the project is stripes. It doesn’t have to be color stripes, it can be texture or beads. This really opened up the options.
I’ve had my eye on a summer weight sweater, something with short sleeves. Something casual and comfortable. After poking around on Ravelry I decided on Derecho designed by Alison Green. (Link goes to Berroco website.) The sweater has a textured yoke that looks striped so it meets the requirements.
I’m not an experienced sweater knitter. I tend to struggle with fit. I’m hoping the top down pattern will allow me to try it on as I knit. I’m hoping the yarn, a bamboo cotton blend will work for the pattern. I’m hoping I can adapt the pattern as I knit. I’m hoping I can get the whole thing knit in a month.
The plan is to knit a swatch (I know, like a real knitter!), wash it and see what the fabric and my gauge look like. Fortunately I can do that during June so if multiple attempts are necessary I won’t waste all of July. But first I’ve got to get my June socks finished.
My Circus Camp Loopy Monkey Socks are progressing nicely. Later today when I sit down to knit I’ll be starting in on the toe of the first sock.
That’s not the only circus going on. There are so many rings of craziness I barely know which ones to watch.
Let’s start with Project Veritas. A new whistleblower came forward this week, a reporter for a Fox News affiliate. It’s becoming more and more obvious to me that without seeing the actual receipts the news can’t be trusted.
Revolver News had a piece this week about the January 6th riot at the Capitol. At this point there are multiple articles, Congressman Louie Gohmert gave a speech reiterating the Revolver News story and Congressman Matt Gaetz has asked for answers from FBI Director Wray. Now ordinarily I’d find this interesting but mostly let it go because there isn’t enough first hand data. But then I happened on this thread on Twitter showing photos and video. Makes that first article seem a whole lot more fact than fantasy.
While we are talking about bringing the receipts. It seems the Secretary of State of Georgia is missing a bunch of his receipts for the Nov 3, 2020 election. Seems odd for the most secure election ever- yes, that’s sarcasm. Meanwhile the audit in Maricopa County AZ continues. In related news the Secretary of State of Colorado has issues emergency rules preventing election audits. Got something to hide? Seems like a guilty move to me. If I had the most secure election ever I’d be inviting an audit.
We’ve got a busy weekend planned here. N has his last meet. I’ve got socks to knit and a poodle to groom. It’ll be a three ring circus. Enjoy your weekend!
I feel like I’m taking forever to knit these socks. I really hope the second one moves along faster than the first. I usually find it works that way.
Anyway, that’s the first Monkey sock beyond the heel.
I’m beginning to feel pressure since the July Camp Loopy project details were announced and I ordered yarn. All the stress is self induced so I’ll try to just ignore that and work diligently to get the socks done before the end of the month.
If you’ve been around here for a while you’ve heard me whine about the clematis. It’s a long saga. It involves multiple plantings and more money than it should have cost. We changed the dirt, planted extra annuals to protect the new plants. Then we’d pull the dead clematis out in the fall. Just when I was ready to give up I bought 3 plants for $5 each and every year they look better and better. The earliest blooms are spent but there are more buds so the color should last another week or so.
Have you ever measured your feet? Not to figure out what size shoes to buy but to tell someone else what size socks to knit. I did that once a long time ago for a sock exchange. That is when I learned my feet are basically square. They’re 8 inches long (yes, I have stupidly small feet. So small that shoe shopping is depressing. I’m often sent to the kids section.) and 8 inches around. I have what I call Fred Flintstone feet. They’re wide and short.
I think my quirky foot size is why I like hand knit socks. I can make them just right. They aren’t too long or too narrow. They are just right.
As you can see I’ve been working on the heel. I went with the pattern and did a plain stockinette heel. I’ll regret that later if the heels wear out quickly but there is nylon in this yarn so I’m taking the chance. I did 8 repeats of the lace pattern on the leg which when added to the ribbing made for an 8 inch leg length.
How’s your crafting? Did you get some time to enjoy it over the weekend?
It’s been one of those get nothing done weekends. I had every intention of blogging but I was too busy getting nothing done.
Tomorrow is Flag Day so I had The Husband dig out the flag and put it up. This flag and pole were my mother’s. She always had a flag on her house. After a visit she’d follow me outside and unwrap the flag from the pole while she said a few last words.
I always think of the Pledge of Allegiance when I see a flag. I remember saying the Pledge every morning in catholic school. We said the Pledge and ended it with Amen. Still to this day I say the Amen in my head. Sometimes play ball slides through too. Pavlov could have studied me along with the dogs.
If you look closely you’ll see there is a star painted like a flag on our front door. That went up after Easter. I didn’t know what to put up and happened on it in the basement.
The only other thing that got done this weekend was a little knitting. More about that tomorrow.
I’m a child of the 60’s and 70’s. I remember them well. We had hippies, Vietnam, Kennedy, LSD, bell bottoms, disco, The Grateful Dead and stagflation. It appears everything old is new again. But tell me why when faced with this list of flashbacks we can’t have the fun ones back? Disco would be so much better than the barrel of the stagflation gun we’re looking down.
For those too young to have vivid memories of stagflation it is when inflation keeps rising, there is high unemployment and slow economic growth. My biggest memories were increasing beef prices (check), increasing gas prices (check) and increasing real estate prices (check). Only a certain demographic of the population does well in this kind of economy and chances are if you’re reading my blog that isn’t you.
Are you seeing signs of a bad economy on the horizon? I’m hoping those in charge learned the lessons from the 70’s and 80’s so we can correct this quickly without taking too much of a loss.
I have been spending a small amount of time every day working on the Monkey Socks for Camp Loopy. There is visible progress. I’m reaching the point where I’m going to start weighing the yarn. I want to be sure I reach the 400 yard requirement which is a challenge in and of itself when knitting socks.
I’ve been knitting socks since before I had a blog, which was 17 years in March. I love everything about knitting them. They’re magical knitting to me. Along the way I’ve knit a fair number of patterns that I would consider classics. Monkey socks and their cousin No Purl Monkeys are surely classics. Other patterns that fall into this category are Hermione’s Everyday Socks, Broadripple, Vanilla Latte Socks, Blueberry Waffle Socks, and Jaywalker. Which sock patterns do you consider classics?
These are the many pots sitting on our patio. There are tomatoes, broccoli, summer squash, peas and on the lower right Japanese Maple trees.
Cucumbers and peppers. The double bucket is an experiment of potatoes.
It’s sort of a mixed bag of how things are doing. The potatoes are looking fantastic. They grow taller every day and The Husband has had to add dirt frequently. The tomatoes are doing well and have their first flowers. At the other end of the spectrum we have the peppers and cucumbers which are doing horribly. The Husband keeps putting in new seeds but they aren’t doing very well.
