Filler

Knitting progress is being made here in the Knit/Wit house, although knitting time is competing with walking time now that the weather is cooperating again. J and I went down to the "jail trail" (a paved trail that begins at the county jail and runs between Second Avenue and the Parkway East) on Saturday. He rollerbladed while I walked the equivalent of a 5K and tried to ignore the catcalls coming from clearly bored drivers sitting in construction traffic on the parkway (listening to episodes of Lime and Violet helped). I went out to walk again after J left on Sunday evening, this time through the hilly terrain of the cemetery across the street, with soundtrack provided by the latest episode of Cast On.

If anything, the warmer weather has been serving as good motivation to finish knitting a heavy, 100% wool sweater. Forecast is moving along; we've now got half a sleeve, which will see lots of ribbing action tonight.

It's a little hard to see, but I've made a mod that seems to be pretty popular among participants in the knitalong -- starting the ribbing a little higher on the arm than called for in the pattern. In my case, I'm starting it roughly at the elbow.

As usual, I also have a pair of traveling socks going (as I do at all times). Unfortunately my current socks have seem to have become Most Boring Socks Ever. They're a basic stockinette with short-row heels and toes, which usually isn't an issue for me, since I can knit stockinette very quickly without looking.

I think the problem with these might be the yarn. This is Greenwood Fiberworks cotton/lycra blend, which is my absolute favorite to wear (you may recall that I wore out my first pair knitted with this yarn). While I love how soft and squishy these socks are once they're done and on my feet, I've come to realize that I just don't care for knitting with this yarn. It's a tad bit fussy (especially when you try grafting with it or trying to weave in the ends) and because of the elasticity of the lycra the stitches squinch down on themselves, meaning that the number of rows per inch is a lot higher than I'm used to, meaning these are taking forEVer to knit. I am determined to finish these in the next few days, if only to be done with them once and for all, but also because my next Rockin' Sock Club shipment should be on its way this week.

Aside from this knitting, I've been enjoying another pasttime. Can you keep a secret? I've been reading again. If you've been reading this blog from the beginning (or perhaps gone back and read old entries), you'll know that I used to read all the time for pleasure. Then I started my new job, for which I read all day. And for about the first year, the last thing I wanted to do was read; that's probably one reason why I started knitting so obsessively. In the past few months, however, I've been able to read for a little bit each night. At first it was Elizabeth Zimmermann and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Then, lately, I've been moving back into more serious (read: non-knitting) books. I finished Mockingbird, a biography of Harper Lee, the other night. To Kill a Mockingbird has long been one of my favorite books, and I loved getting an inside view of the woman behind it.