Yarn Along, Preparing to Can

As always, I’m knitting along with Ginny on Small Things on Wednesday.

I finished my June socks yesterday, so today I cast on my Birds in Flight socks to send to Knit Picks for photographing.  The yarn is Stroll Tonal in Blue Yonder and I loooooove this colorway.  This is my third time knitting with it, and I know it won’t be my last (especially because I’ll have leftovers from three hanks by the time these socks are done).  My goal is to get these socks shipped off before the end of the month. 

I’m also knitting a second baby sweater for charity—you can see my first sweater on my knitting blog.  And this week I’m putting the finishing touches on a scarf for someone in Japan and will mail my box out to Ginny.  I look forward to sending her my box of hats and scarves—and I love going to the post office with a package to mail.  It’s almost as good as coming home with a package!

After these projects, I’m contemplating whether I’ll knit the socks I’d meant to knit for July (read about my cool, updated self-imposed Sock of the Month Club plans here) or cast on Nathan’s Baby Surprise/Tomten Jacket (Ravelry link) instead.  There are so many things I want to knit all at once—and obviously not enough time.  But oddly and conversely, I have plenty of yarn.

I have two new books on my nightstand this week.  I’m boning up on the canning techniques and recipes in the Big Book of Preserving the Harvest with plans for raspberry preserves at the minimum, and who knows what else at the maximum.  I doubt I’ll get enough tomatoes to make canning worth it, but I’m up for preserving just about anything this year.

My other book is Come to Grief by Dick Francis.  He’s my favorite author of all time, and this book is one of three in a series about the same character, a jockey-turned-private investigator set in England’s thoroughbred racing scene.  It has all the components a good mystery needs, including action, well-developed characters, intrigue and horses.  I love Francis’ writing style and the British version of the English language.  As a lover of words, Francis’ books are the only ones my soul needs—I’d read each one of them, including the ones he co-wrote with his son, which weren’t nearly as good.  I had a heavy heart the day that he passed away early last year, and my heart feels heavy every time I remember that there will be no more great works from him ever again.  Like now.