At Least the Knitting Is Behaving

After all the drama of the weekend, I was hoping that when the week started things would get back to normal. Not so -- Monday ended up being a bit of a whirlwind! I think I mentioned that Rainbow was starting day camp, and that involves waiting for a bus. And yesterday, the bus left without her. Fortunately the camp was able to get her another ride there (it's out in the suburbs, so it wasn't realistic for me to drive her), and we got things sorted for today. She even said it was "kind of fun" (believe me, that's an improvement over last year) and the only real negative, other than a lunch she didn't much like, was that she had to rush right to instructional swimming as soon as she got there.

Today was a much calmer day, thanks in no small part that, unlike yesterday, I did get to take my lunch break today and get some knitting time. I find I'm always much less stressed when I can close my door for an hour, pop in my headphones (right now I'm listening to the third Inspector Gamache book), and knit for a bit.

One good thing to come out of the weekend was a finished pair of socks for me:

Pattern: Non-Euclidian, with some twisted 1x1 rib thrown in for fun
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce (80% superwash merino/20% nylon) in the colorway Fairies' Dance, 0.91 skeins
Started/Completed: June 14/June 30

Nearly half of the second sock of this pair was knit while I was at that diversity retreat at work last week, and after that it seemed like the foot just crawled. I would have gotten a lot done Saturday on the drive out to the baby shower were it not for the fact that I was driving (I generally don't like to drive, and not only because not driving means I can knit, but I did it as a favor to my mother). I kept plugging away, however, and did finally finish the toe on Sunday evening before bed.

These were knit over 68 stitches, which is not, as it happens, one of the stitch counts given in the pattern; last week I sent my tech editor a "cheat sheet" I'm planning to add to the pattern so that the heel will work with any stitch count and any gauge. I know not everyone is as crazy as I and knits their socks on size 0 needles as a gauge of 9 stitches per inch!

My new lunchtime knitting is another pair of shortie socks for Rainbow, and I'm working on a new pattern to see if it works out in yarn as it does in my head. I'm using yarn leftover from her sweater (I had 80+ g left in one skein).

As for my Soldotna Crop, it's not done quite yet, but I'm getting close. I think I've got about half of the length done on the body, excluding the ribbing, and pretty soon I think I'm going to put another needle in so I can try it on and determine if I want to add more length.

I really want to finish this up soon because I have another sweater I really need to start on -- the one I'm designing! I need to spend some time this week charting and swatching so I can work out the stranded motif and my numbers, and then I've really got to get crunching on the sample. Amy so helpfully informed me the other day that it's only a little more than 100 days until Rhinebeck! I know I'll have no problem finishing up the actual sweater by then, but if I want to debut the design, I'll need to allow plenty of time for pattern writing, tech editing, and test knitting. So much to do! Better get off the computer and get to it!