Yarn Along

I’m knitting along with Ginny on Small Things today.

It seems like we’ve been spending more time outside than inside these days, so I’m surprised to have so much progress to show on my market bag.  The longer I work on it, the more stylish and functional ideas I get for how the bag will turn out.  It started out as a rectangular bag with two straps much like a tote, but now it has a round bottom, is cylindrical and will only have one strap.  Then I added bands of stockinette for durability and a few zigs and zags for interest.  Now I’m contemplating a drawstring-like tie for when the bag is overflowing with tall goodies (I’m thinking Italian bread) or when tender produce is at risk of being turned out by a toddler.  And I have a particular toddler in mind.  And maybe some picot edging!  Okay, now I’m just getting crazy.

With all the gardening I’ve been doing and playing outside with Nathan, I’m not at all surprised by the lack of progress on my June socks.  (Note green sock yarn still in hank form.  My husband’s not in the mood to serve as my swift tonight, and a 24-hour (and counting) sinus headache is kicking my butt.)  In all, it’s not looking good for my June socks, patterned after my Indian Cigar/Catalpa Tree, which just bloomed.  Especially because I’m still tinkering with the shape of the sock pattern’s leaf motif.  I’m beginning to feel sorta crazy for thinking I could pull off one pair of socks per month all year long, designing some of them myself.  The Yarn Harlot can do it, so why can’t I?! 

(On a side note, would it be wrong to combine June and July’s socks into one pair?  My birthday is two days after Christmas, and when I was a kid I didn’t appreciate getting one gift for both, so I think I’ll have to knit both pairs to keep the self-imposed-sock-of-the-month club gods happy.  Especially because I already own the yarn for July’s socks.)

Maybe for now I’ll shelve the sock issue(s) and curl up with my book.  I finished Oprah’s biography and I’m now reading Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears.  I absolutely love her writing, and as a writer I’m savoring—hanging on, really—her every word.  Her descriptions, her humor, her wit—they all make me want to become a better writer.  And a smarter person.  She’s so darn intelligent and awesome.

I also love that I’m reading about knitting and it’s in paragraph form.  I feel like I’m having a conversation with Elizabeth, except I’m playing the role of very quiet listener, absorbing every word and asking her to speak ever so slowly so I can take it all in and remember every bit of it.  I read books like these very, very slowly.  My husband, who practically speed reads, doesn’t understand how I enjoy the craft—my craft and profession since before I even graduated college—in this way.  But I imagine you can understand, dear avid reader friends.  Don’t you just love words?