Tomorrow: You're Only a Day Away*

Tomorrow's the day: Rainbow comes home from camp! I thought she'd be getting in at noon-ish, but it turns out the bus doesn't arrive until around 3, so it looks like I have more of a day to myself than I thought (I have a use-it-or-lose-it day off from work). Perhaps I'll use that extra time to do some of the things I said I'd do while she was gone but never actually got around to?

My main focus this week (or, at least, the past few evenings) has been my Soldotna Crop. Last night I just made it to the sleeve/body split, which means that tonight I'll get moving on the body.

If you look closely at the pattern pictures, you'll see that I messed around with the colors a bit. The reason for this is that I'm working with four skeins that were already in my stash, all the same base, and two of them are very close in color -- the dark blue that I started with at the collar and the dark purple in that center arrow-like motif. If I had followed the pattern as written, I would have ended up with some sections where both those colors were used side by side and you really wouldn't have been able to tell them apart without looking at them closely in bright light. I also used the light purple in the top vertical stripe section rather than the light blue so I'd have a little bit of cushion on the light blue in case I want to make the body a bit longer (and/or add a little length to the sleeves before adding the cuff).

At work, I've been making good progress on my socks, thanks in no small part to the all-day diversity retreat I attended on Tuesday. I knit during the two keynote addresses, part of lunch, and the panel discussion at the end of the day (all were in a big ballroom with a lot of people and I was sitting toward the back, so I didn't distract anyone). All that time took me from a little bit more than the cuff done to being partway through the heel. I'm now ready to turn the heel and move on toward the foot.

A little trick I did on this pair (which I picked up from someone on Ravelry recently) is to use the yarn from the other end of the ball/cake when I start turning the heel. This keeps the stripe pattern from being interrupted on the front of the sock. Smart, right?  I lucked out when I did the first sock, as the yarn on the other end was the same color at the stripe I was in the middle of when I finished the heel increases, so you can't even tell by looking that I didn't just carry on with the same strand.

Incidentally, I should mention that I've now got a Non-Euclidian heel "cheat sheet" with my tech editor that will be added on to the pattern to allow you to work it at any gauge and with any stitch count, so those of you who aren't as crazy as I am and don't work socks with fingering and size 0 needles (coughcoughMarycoughcough) can try out the heel.

Reading has been happening as well as knitting, so let's take a look at my bingo card.

I've added one book to my card since my last check-in, and that is The Goldfinch, which I finished on Monday. I really enjoyed it, though there were some parts I didn't much care for (the last chapter, in particular, lost me). I'm now listening to Harbor Me for a group read-along and discussion sponsored by Anne of Little Skein in the Big Wool. I totally missed out on discussing the first book, even though it was a book I had already read -- I blame a busy time at work. This one is only about four hours long and I've got about an hour and a half left, so I should finish it by this evening. I think it will likely go in the "Protagonist with a different ethnicity from you own" box on the bingo card.

I've already got my next books lined up as well. I'm number 1 on the wait list for the next Inspector Gamache audiobook from the library, and bought a new hardback book that arrived yesterday that I think will be a very timely read given recent events. One of the two phenomenal keynote speakers at the retreat on Tuesday was Crystal Marie Fleming. She was such an amazing speaker that while I was listening to her I got on my phone and ordered her most recent book, How to Be Less Stupid About Race. It's been a while since I bought a hardback book, but I think this was worth it. I'm looking forward to reading it and learning more!

*I apologize for the earworm I'm sure I've given some of you. It probably wouldn't surprise you to know that at one point in my childhood I loved to sit on the counter of the built-ins in my living room and belt out the songs from Annie.