knitting a go-go

goodbye to spring for a few days; we are heading for summer. while at our house the shy may apple flowers are just popping, at kim’s house they have tomatoes on the vine.
oh yeah, baby; we’re gonna have good eats.

since i’m writing this post ahead of time, i’m not sure what i’m knitting right now, but it’s likely a sock, since i have three sock projects in my bag. even if i reached in will-nilly and picked something blindly, odds are that i’d come up with a sock.

i have three man socks on the needles at the moment (note to self: balance is good—cast on girl sock upon return home). one is my traveling holidazed sock that’s about half done

i knit some rows on a trip to the chiropractor’s friday evening, but progress has been slow. if i’m smart, i’ll finish this one first so that i have another pair to add to the sock shelf at trip’s end.

then i have another second sock i started on the return trip from maryland

i have a lot further to go on this sock but it knits up so fast, i might get it to a decent length on this trip. we have two long flights and at least one volleyball game to knit through, so i’m very optimistic about finishing something on this trip.

i was gonna call this one the david sock, but now i’m thinking of naming it nate, because i saw a lacier motif with more openwork that i know david will like. we’ll see . . .

the roger sock is underway though you can’t see anything special about it yet

i’m plan to use a pattern i knit some years ago in a sock for david that he liked a lot; i don’t know what took me so long to reincarnate that one—it’s a good, earthy knit/purl pattern that will appeal to men and women alike. as you can see, i’m using the leftover grandma’s blessing yarn from my ondulé sweater.

i might even be knitting on this one now—just because i should be finishing other socks doesn’t mean i’m doing that. like any of us, i enjoy getting a new sock to the point where i can really see the pattern forming. and who knows, i may even have done that in class yesterday afternoon.

(wow, writing today’s post when you don’t know how yesterday turned out?? really weird but sorta cool. i dunno if i’d make a habit of it but once in a while it’s a worthy mind-bender.)

then i have a few non-sock projects in the bag

i finished the first half of the white hillflowers scarf sunday night and put it on a holder. since the pattern includes a wrap version, it’s written to be knit in two pieces and grafted for symmetry, but you could totally knit this in one piece if you prefer. i’m doing mine in two so that the photos will be faithful to the pattern. and conveniently, it makes for lighter traveling that way. so i started the second half in class monday morning

i sent kari, the test knitter, a big skein of sweet socks yarn from the sweet sheep wool shoppe to knit a sample of the wrap. it’s a mostly-white-with-neutrals colorway that should translate nicely in this pattern (i think the garter waves will work really well with variegated yarns).

and then there is my nightingale stole

i put an inch or two on it since the other day and now that there’s something to hold, i am settling into a rhythm with the knitting. only 59 or so inches to go . . .
but i’m taking it one inch at a time and delighting in this gorgeous colorway from a verb for keeping warm as i go.

apropos of nothing, i started a new project as well. i know don’t need another one just yet, but i had an idea that wouldn’t leave me alone, so i figured if i got some experimental knitting on the needles it would be quiet.

the yarn i’m using for the test piece is farm yarn alpaca, sent to me a while back for a test run—i love this natural brown color. as you can see from the next picture

this is another triangle, but different—it’s wider than it is long. right now it doesn’t have any edging because that’s going on later. i like the idea of this shape but it’s hard to do an incorporated edging that is stretchy enough to allow adequate relaxation along the sides. i’m going to try adding the edging afterward to make all three sides as stretchy as possible.

this prototype will end as a scarf-sized piece. for the full-sized shawl (and wrap; i think this pattern would make a great wrap), i’m going to be getting some beautiful yarns from the fibre company through kelbourne woolens, yippee. you will NOT be sorry to see them.

truthfully, this last project may have ended up staying home; i’m not sure at this writing if it’s one that i want to bring along, but then, you never know.

so that’s my bag of traveling tricks; next time you hear from me, we’ll see how what and how much got done. and to be sure, there’ll be all manner of beautiful things to show you from sunny san diego.

we’ll be exploring torrey pines once again, taking beckie to julian and borrego springs, the beach, and visiting with knitting pals in encinitas. plus, many hilarious moments with kim’s family, i’m sure. see you there . . .