Another day when I wonder if I’ll get through all I have to say. I’ll start with socks.

Here’s the bedsock, now combining different KF colorways and looking rather jolly. I’ve joined in a fourth oddball – soon there will be no yarn left in the house. (Not) And by tomorrow we should know how it fits, and what my husband thinks of a shaped arch.



Here’s the general sock situation, while we’re at it. This is the current travel-and-waiting-room sock, on which progress seems to be very slow. Cast on in May. Taken to CT. I haven’t finished a single pair of socks this year, except for the possum-and-merino Cherry Tree Hill bedsocks, finished in May, worn out in September. Maybe I should press ahead now and finish this pair.



And here’s an abandoned pair, meant for Alexander. The leg is a 6 x 2 rib, which is why it looks so skinny.

Two things went wrong here. One, it’s knit of an Araucania yarn, 20% or 25% polyana-whatsit so I assumed it would wash like a sock yarn. I used the same quality for Ketki’s Calcutta Cup sweater last year, and most uncharacteristically not only made a swatch for that, but washed it, in the cycle I use for socks. Blow me if it didn’t felt. Sweaters can be handwashed or even dry cleaned, so I went ahead. But socks are a different matter.

And, two, these were the travel-and-waiting-room socks on the day (last November?) when I went to the Eye Pavilion and learned that retinal vein occlusion has involved permanent damage to my sight. On previous appointments drs had been a bit economical with that news, and I had assumed that the promised laser treatment would make everything all right again. I was knitting the socks that day as long as I could while the eye drops took effect, and got in a bit of a muddle with the ribbing, and couldn’t see to put it right, and then saw the dr and learned the news, and haven’t touched the socks since.

Maybe I’d better finish them, too. They are intended for Alexander, who can wash them once and then abandon them. And they might be all right after all in a cycle with minimum spin.

Other news

Yesterday morning, I was expecting no fewer than nine knit-related items in the mail – and the Post Office had put itself in sleep mode. On Saturday we got nothing at all but a catalogue of painfully ill-fitting shoes. But yesterday two things came, the Yarn Yard “housebrick” sock yarn, and Lynne Barr’s “Reversible Knitting”.

The book is interesting, and needs more discussion time than now remains, so tomorrow. Meanwhile, I scanned the picture of the Grandson Sweater I mentioned yesterday, from Susanne Pagoldh’s “Nordic Knitting”. Isn’t that something? The body has a seed pattern which doesn't really appear in the scan -- you knit alternate dark and light stitches every third row. I’m sure Meg has some yarn for it.

The doorbell just rang -- two more wonderful packages. Watch this space.