Mostly Knitting Content

What a surprise! The Weather Dot Com guys say it is only supposed to be partly cloudy today, although it’s raining right now. But we all know that: rain before seven - quit by eleven. They promise us 4 days without (as much chance of) rain so I had better get the laundry done, because on Sunday they’re promising rain again.

Let us pray for a quick wheat harvest.

Yesterday around 4:30 we got a call from the county FEMA guy - a man who has almost nothing to do and so attacks any opportunity with gusto, with the news that we were under a tornado watch and to get under our desks if we heard any whistling sound. I’m always a little dismissive (except when I am a lot dismissive) about tornado warnings around here. We don’t live in a tornado zone, there are no wide unbroken expanses of geography to invite those black twisting fingers out of the far Canadian north. But we do, from time to time, get fierce, brief whirling wind bursts that do a surprising amount of damage. At least, I’m careful enough to keep the library insurance at maximum replacement just in case, because other than fire, one of those windstorms is about the only thing that would destroy the building.

Ahh well. Weather is only interesting to those of us who are under it. With grace and luck we will be out from under soon.

I am sure it is the cause of my sieve like mind these days. I had intended to take the LL sock into work yesterday to post a scan of it’s HorribleHeel and as I heading out to the car I picked up the bag holding it and BD’s sock ... and stood there just pondering the question “Why would I take my knitting to work?”

And so I didn’t and remembered immediately I got into my office, about scanning and posting and all. I will try to do better today. I did knit a wee bit on BD’s sock. I’m trying a garter stitch heel flap, mostly because I’m bored with the ridged stockinette one. This is sock #1 and BD likes long ribbed cuffs so I suppose I’d best be knitting along on it.

I cleaned out my knitting basket yesterday. Since I am a WomanWithWoolstash, you might wonder “which basket?” It’s the one with WIP’s in it. But even a dynamic active knitting basket can be come a Chaos of Clutter - and very quickly, too. Mine had gotten so jumbled I just upended it onto the floor and worked from what had been on the bottom first.

And first of all was the broken rib pullover I was knitting on last January as well as all the rest of its yarn. Front & back are done and joined. One sleeve is about half done and there is plenty of yarn to finish it up. I’m not going to knit on it this summer - it’s Brown Sheep Handpaint Merino/Mohair and it’s H O T. But it is soft and scrunchy and lovely and it will be the first cool weather thing I pick up. I will finish one sweater in 2006 - I swear I will.

Also in the basket was the cathedral lace swatch, knit in the cashmere/merino/nylon I bought from Elann on the last day of 2005 - before the yarn fast began. My that is truly a lovely yarn. Soft and delicate feeling but strong. I wonder if I would rather have a shawl out of it? Well - it must be knit on #3 needles. Lots of slow knitting. I’ll make up my mind about the actual garment later.

There were the leftover bits of sock yarn from the past 3 pair of socks I’d knit - the cascade fixation, the purply self striping yarn whose ballband I lost ages ago, but which I remember purchasing at Stony Mt. Fibers one lovely winter day, and the camo colored Regia from LD’s Christmas socks. There were also the Lorna’s Laces Sock Of The Bulbous Toe, the cuff of BD’s sock and another cuff knit from some Spirit Trail sock yarn in a vivid red and black and gold combo. I’d begun that sock for BD and stopped cold when he told me he thought the colors were too bright. This man is a Black & Blue Sock guy. How fortunate that I love the colorway and don’t’ mind having another pair of socks - oh no - not at all. There were two more skeins of beautiful Spirit Trail sock yarn, whispering come hither sounds. The Lone Wildfoote Lace sock is languishing in that basket - and may be for some time. It’s going to take quite an effort for me to find the rest of the sock yarn and remember which Barbara Walker lace pattern I used for the cuff. It may be that that pretty sock is destined to be a conversation piece instead of a garment. The pair of Fixation socks were the final sockish basket resident, each with a tapestry needle stuck in the toe, waiting to get busy weaving in the yarn ends.

As I type away at this boringly long litany of What’s In My Basket - I realize that if I had a camera it might be quite an interesting post. It would certainly take less time for readers to gather from it whatever information they wanted. ahh well. She’s such a nice girl. If only she wouldn’t talk so much.

You can see my ENFP nature is urging me to drop this litany but I will persevere.

There were three swatches of the grey corriedale (I have a tragic story to tell about that, on another day.), one of them holding a #3 needle hostage. There were two loose circulars, another #3 and a #4. A couple of bamboo DP’s were lurking in the basket as well. My good metal ruler with the cork backing, a new gadgety type ruler, made of clear plastic that has been treated to sort of magnify what lies beneath, and a pair of scissors are permanent residents and it’s a sign of how little real knitting I’m doing, since they are all present and accounted for. If I were really working on anything, they’d wander off and get themselves lost, leaving me to tear the house apart looking for them at crucial steps along the knitted garment pathway.

A few hastily discarded bits of hand spun singles tangled themselves among the finished yarn, tightly bound together with a long strand of woolly nylon slipping from its cone. There was an empty bead tube and a small handful of paper trash that had managed to jump into the basket. I spent a gentle half hour untangling everything and replacing it in some sort of productive sequence. Sweater yarn and pieces first, then swatches, then sock yarn and then Socks In Progress. Trash was tossed, leftover sock yarn was put in the sock yarn drawer and needles were put in my NeedleBook.

The whole experience was hugely rewarding. I was pleased to see what a lovely sweater I’m capable of knitting. Seeing my swatches again reminds me of my design skills. All that gloriously pretty sock yarn makes me trust my judgment and taste. And then - there is the delight of knowing I have so many socks partly done! Why - I have a pair I could almost wear - if I would just weave in those ends. Perhaps I shall do that tonight! At Tara!

Best of all, though, is the tidy knitting basket - a useful tool, now, ready to offer up any sort of knitting project I might be inclined to take on. May all your knitting baskets be so well disposed.