Life is What Happens When You Make Other Plans

I had such great plans for this year. I would finish the last of the birthday socks and try my hand at knitting lace. I would finish Pat's vest. To do that is to Knit Fearlessly for me because I don't like to make anything that requires more than one skein of yarn. By summer I would be working with that beautiful turquoise yarn that I have had stashed for about 3 years, making a summer shell for myself. Fall would find me using the yarn Pat gave me for Christmas to make lace socks -- for me!!
Hm... Wasn't it John Lennon who said "Life is what happens when you make other plans?" (I always think of Father Straight, of St. Joe's Episcopal in Grand Prairie, using the quote. He loved it, but I do believe John Lennon said it first.) Regardless, it is so true for me! None of my knitting plans worked this year.
I did finish the grandkid socks by May, right on time. I planned to finish Pat's vest for Father's Day. I had all three sections completed. Then I went to sew them together. Hm... Masters Degree in Library Science. Art Degree, with Teaching Certificate to teach Junior and Senior High Art. The woman can't read a ruler. The back was one length. The right side, if stretched, would just about match up to it, but the left side was 3 inches too long. What happened here?? I frogged all three sections back to the same point, put them on stitch holders and lost them in the bottom of the knitting basket. I will return to them in the Fall when I can sit quitely and focus on the pattern while knitting. I have also ordered some extra long cables for my KnitPick Options needles. I am strongly considering knitting all three sections at the same time, the way I do socks, so I reach the armholes at the same point for each section this time.
That shoots one Fearless project.
Then I started doing Library Board Training in June, July, August and September. I've been on the road most evenings all summer. -- I can't remember the number of libraries I've visited but I've trained 141 people in the four months, sometimes 3 or 4 at a meeting, sometimes 8 at a meeting. That works out to a lot of meetings.-- There wasn't much time to veg in front of the TV, knitting and watching Law and Order reruns. I didn't perfect the art of driving and knitting at the same time, either. There was something about the look of abject fear on the face of the on-coming driver that made me miss my count...
There goes the two summer projects : my lace curtains and the turquoise shell.
The one pair of socks I was working on took the entire summer. I gave them to Lala at the first of September. She was esctatic. Jen says she didn't take them off for two or three days. She may have even slept in them. (I'll beleive it. I saw them in the laundry basket. Ewww! Dirty feet! I must tell that girl that socks are to be worn inside shoes, not outside as house slippers...)
Well, I can still make the lace socks I from my Christmas yarn! It was such a simple plan, but even that backfired. The yarn didn't want to be lace. It didn't even want to be a complex cable or ribbing pattern. Everytime I started it I found myself frogging and trying something else. I'm past the heel now and going up the ankle. The yarn wanted to be a simple k2p2 rib. Ah, well. No Fearless challenge here. Hm... unless...
I still have a full ball of Christmas yarn that I haven't even opened. I found this pattern for knee highs with a shaped calf in one of my books. I wonder if the yarn wants to be knee highs? I could just keep knitting and see where it goes. Knee highs would be very cozy in this drafty old house come wintertime. I hope I can work out that increase for the calf...
Sometimes yarn that isn't even yours talks to you. Jen's friend Mickey (Michelle) is pregnant with her first baby. Last time we were in Topeka I ran into Hobby Lobby for one more skein of baby yarn to make the blanket I am planning for her. Two bins below the baby yarn was a varigated brown Paton's sock yarn. Cotton/wool/elastic blend. It told me it wanted to be socks for Reyes. Hey, I'm learning you have to listen to the yarn. I bought 2 skeins of it.
Reyes is 11 years old with feet nearly as big as Pat's. He has 10 inch feet now, so I anticipate making at least 11 inch socks, maybe 11 1/2 inch to allow for his growth and the yarn's srinkage. The yarn is superfine weight. I found a pattern for a slouch sock that wanted me to use a size 2 needle and cast on 80 stitches for a medium woman's sock or 90 stitches for a medium man's sock. 11 1/2 didn't sound medium to me, so I worked the toe and expanded to 100 stitches for Reyes' foot.
Nope. It would have made a fine hat, but it was way too big for a sock. I dropped back to 80. Still too big. I'm bringing the toes back up for about the 8th time now. I feel like Get Smart -- "Would you believe 60?" Where do these pattern designers get their numbers? I realize I knit toe up, not top down, but they carry about the same number of stitches across the foot as up the calf. I don't knit loosely. Nearly everything I make is on gauge for ths size needle the pattern suggests. Why the big discrepency in size? Does this mean I'm going to have to knit top down when I use a pattern? Argh! I'll have to master the Kitchner stitch! Talk about challenging your fears!
It's the middle of September. My Library Board Training is over. I wonder if I can get back on track? Maybe I can finish Pat's vest for Christmas. The summer shell can wait another summer, but I might try the lace curtains again. There is only one window in the kitchen... If not an entire curtain, maybe I can find some plain sock yarn that wants to be lace. I have some pink yarn from KnitPicks waiting in my stash... That would be three of four Fearless goals met by Christmas... Hm... We'll have to see what the yarn and I can do together

Motorcycling and KIPing to Mississippi and Back

Old Natchez Trace north of Jackson, Mississippi

Pat and I just returned from a 5 day vacation, from August 28 to Sept. 1. We rode his Honda Pacific Coast to Jackson, Mississippi, visited family there, then took the Natchez Trace north and worked our way back to Kansas via Arkansas and Missouri. We may have been the only tourists caught among a host of folks from Louisiana running before Hurricane Gustav. We didn't quit seeing Louisiana tags until Sunday in Russellville, Arkansas.

Bike travel means traveling light. We had a couple of pairs of jeans each and several t-shirts, and our toothbrushes, but I managed to bring my yarn with me! It was safely stashed in the backpack purse I wore. I wasn't ready to knit while biking down the road at 70 mph, but I did bring it out every time we made a serious stop -- for cold drinks, for a meal, for the night.

I am working on socks for me. This is the first pair where I've tried to work a lace pattern on the sock. (Cables I have done, but never lace.) It's a mixed success. I've mastered the pattern, but I have sport weight yarn, not fingering weight yarn. It doesn't look as delicate as it should. Ah, well, they will be warm. I'll need that in our 100-year-old house come winter.

I was disappointed that we didn't find any yarn stores along the way. I'm sure there were plenty, but I didn't search the net for them before we left, so we didn't know where to go for them. Next time, I'll know better.

We did stop at the Mississippi Crafts Center a bit north of Jackson, just off the Trace. I talked to a woman who was spinning silk. Small world that it is, she used to live in Midlothian, Texas, just south of Grand Prairie where I lived for over 20 yrs! She was a regular at Scarborough Faire, the Renaissance Faire outside Waxahatchie, Tex. and she knew of Steve's friend, Bull, who works at Excalibur Swords. Now that's just getting weird...

I was fascinated by the lady's spinning. She has one of the small spinning wheels like some of my Kansas friends have. I really am going to have to learn to spin. It does look interesting.

Talk about a yarn stash! I can't knit all the yarn I have now. What would I do if I started spinning my own yarn? Hm... Well, I'd have the right weight yarn for my lace socks, that would be one thing. And fingering weight would pack even smaller on the next bike ride. Gee, that does sound promising!