And we’ve got our own desfilando around the house. One young boy sure makes a good parade all by himself. He and his Dad drew a US flag and they borrowed a quilt stick (taken from the baby quilt I haven’t worked on in years).

After the parade (and I hope we get a spot we can see it from, without a kid on my shoulders), we’ll find some blueberries and raspberries or strawberries and have red white and blue dessert.

Then we’ll cower in the house while the neighborhood fireworks go off all around. (But surely not this year! It’s so dry!) (clearly wishful thinking)

Happy Fourth of July! May we make it through uninjured!

Man, these are fast! I bought the yarn Friday, cast on same day, and finished knitting them Tuesday. Last ends woven in yesterday, in line at the hospital pharmacy, waiting with a patient. Yes, I washed them. I suppose I could call it wet-blocking, but it’s really washing, followed by blocking. I carry my knitting with me all over, and sometimes it falls to the floor. Shocking, I know.

Wednesday evening, I washed them and wrapped them up in a towel to squeeze out excess water. Naturally, my son insisted on helping (he’s very helpful), and stood on them for a while. We maybe overdid it. Poor squishy yarn, no longer so squishy. Flattened cables. Laying them out to dry, we poofed up the cables again. I’ll see how they look once they’re dry. I can always reblock, maybe just steam this time (now the cooties have been washed off), or wetblock but with gentle removal of not so much excess water.

Nope, they’re fine. Colour is not at all true in these photos. Sigh.

Kid sweater update: I’ve been told I need to knit the flame sweater now. He still wants the orange snake sweater, or maybe a vest (here we go again…), but first the flames. I have to buy yarn. I’ve got fingering wt dyed by Lisa Souza in the perfect colours for flames (EarthBirth). Now I need enough black or dark grey fingering weight to go with it. I wonder how much our mental images of this sweater differ?  (I requested black Baby Ull Dalegarn from Piedmont Yarn and Apparel the other day.)

Hello there!

This is officially Crazy Week.

Not counting the weather, which went from excruciatingly hot to suddenly cold over the weekend. Naturally, I wore sandals and short sleeves yesterday. Today I’m wearing wool socks and long sleeves. Guess which day was warmer?

And it smells like campfires since Saturday or Sunday, and much stronger today at noon. I don’t think that’s good. (We’re fine, though. Surely not good for those with the fires close.)

Crazy. That’s all for today.

We went for a short ramble Saturday with the Kid’s friend. They took some encouraging, until they transformed into Bugs Bunny, Speedy, Super Why, and finally Bugs Bunny and girlfriend and Spot Bunny and girlfriend and me as Taxi Rabbit. A crowd, considering we’re three people, and only one of us over four feet tall.

We like this tree, even overexposed in a cell phone camera shot.

The socks are going great, more or less those River Rapid Socks (pdf), except I switched out the yarnovers for a different increase or two, and I never carry the pattern around with me anyway so there’s no telling where I’ll end up. Or where I’ve been.

I stopped by Piedmont Yarn and Apparel last Friday because I had an opportunity to drop in on their knitting group. Nice set up. Friendly folks. Sweet little shop, which I already knew.  Perfect decompression for a day with every moment filled with intense patient interactions.  (I usually have a more varied day, with some downtime chained whimpering to my computer, so maybe you shouldn’t read that as a complaint. And not all patient interactions are intense.)

And now I’ve started another set of mitts. One of my coworkers is leaving us (very sad we are) for better things, and she gets knitting from me. This time with bits of cabling. I tried to find something in the yarn closet, really I did, but nothing was right. (Probably because I already had other plans for it all, or it was one of several balls I wanted to keep together for a larger project.) So I bought one. Sublime (cashmere merino silk aran seems to be the name), in a nice deep purple. Showing off cables very nicely.

It fits great! Except it’s not for me, but my five year old. I’m not really interested in a big orange sweater, even with the lovely cables and the good fit. (though it could go nicely with the new glasses I picked out today)

So,

Nearly two whole skeins. I’m glad I checked the size. It was only about 4 inches too big around for the Kid. Or was it 6? Remind me, Margie. Now skeined and washed, and waiting for me to think about the numbers. Again.

I hit the wrong sale.

Because that’s what I do, even as I claim I want a simple small project. How we lie to ourselves!

These River Rapid Socks (from Sock Bug) have the pattern I was almost remembering. I found a printed out copy, aged a couple years, in my pattern folders. Which I was going through because I was putting away newly printed patterns culled from my paper piles. Sometimes good things come from cleaning up, besides a fleeting cleanliness.

I ripped out the ripple rib start - it was a touch too small anyway. Maybe. And I think I’ll ignore all those other wonderful possibilities, which aren’t quite what I want this time, but close. I need a few minutes at a table to cast on and get the first round knit. Because I knit loosely, I use 00/1.75mm needles for my socks. And that size is always metal. I cast on a couple nights ago, joined, and started knitting the first round. As I started the second needle, the fourth slipped quietly out.

It’s been too exciting around here to knit anyway.* In the meantime, I have a lovely pile of yarn noodle in the middle of the table.

And I’m working on the orange sweater still. Now I know I’m knitting on as started (until I reach the armholes), I carry it around with me. It’s using enough yarn that I feel like it will fit me, instead of my five year old. It must be the cables. It’s definitely the cables. Absolutely, the cables.

I think I should put it on waste yarn and check the circumference.

*Excitement involving ten police cars in front of our house and barricading our block for hours after arresting two guys in the next door backyard about ten feet from our back door, and hours later pulling out a stolen car from their garage. Hours, I tell you. We eavesdropped and snooped as much as possible (while pretending to be invisible) and not going outside. I think we figured out a fair bit, but we’re missing some essential details. And I want to know, badly. If it had happened a few houses down, I’d be less interested. Still horridly curious, but less interested. No, the two guys didn’t actually live there. My husband had nightmares about people (police? other bad guys?) coming through our house with guns. At least we didn’t have the responsibility of witnessing police brutality.

I cast on easy, carry around socks - Lichen Socks pattern from Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks, with leg shaping added. Then I decided the colours make me think of water, so it would be fun to have a watery ribbing down the leg. As I inhaled lunch last week on the way to clinic, I pulled out all four Barbara Walker treasuries and Charlene Schurch’s Sensational Knitted Socks. I found these: Embossed Wave (BW), Ribbed Lace (CS), and Ripple Rib Stitch (BW).

Then I noticed I cast on 4 too many stitches, even with the leg shaping, so I decided to pull out the start, and start over without leg shaping. This is the ripple rib stitch. Looks great relaxed, but loses definition stretched out over my foot. If I try the ribbed lace, I’ll replace the yarn overs with a non-holey increase. I like the embossed waves because the edges are so clear and smoother.

I also thought about Knitspot’s Sock de la Mer, but they’re not quite what I’m feeling for this yarn. Then my son pulled out Nancy Bush’s Knitting on the Road (he likes to look at the sock pictures, and even more the little travel drawings with each pattern). Canal du Midi could be it.  (I found a beautiful pair here.)

Looks like I’m swatching.

Antique Lace in SoySilk

Diamond Fantasy Triangle in Sea Silk

Water Socks in Trekking XXL

Here’s where I am with the lovely orange snakes at the gates of hell cardigan. I haven’t picked it up since stalling out to navigate a lengthy decision making process. At last notice, we seem to have decided we were really talking about two different sweaters. This one will continue as is, no extra colours or flames (and I think I know how I’ll do the sleeves), and be a jacket. I guess it won’t be the gates of hell without flames. Oh well. Maybe snakes climbing the gates. The next kid sweater will be a pullover, black, with flames on the front (I see intarsia in my future. Specifically, intarsia in the round).

Just for fun, the flame stitch pattern I came across in one of the Barbara Walker treasuries. Wouldn’t it be awesome in multi flame colours? I don’t think I’m using it here though.