Jaywalking Through Summer

This is of course the famous Jaywalker socks pattern from Grumperina, the next on my WIPapalooza 2015 list.  Some time ago, I offered a pair of knitted socks as a Christmas present for my cousin -- who, though not a knitter herself, is in fact the one who started me reading knitting blogs, way back when -- and her only requests were for knee socks and that they be pink (her emphasis).

I did get the pink part, in Shepherd Socks' "Pink Blossom", wh. is vivid indeed.  The knee socks part rather defeated me, I'm afraid, as I have found, even in my one or two adventures in knitting knee socks, that unless you're willing to wear garters, knee socks really have to be custom-made-snug.  M. has very shapely calves, and lives far enough away that we don't see each other regularly, both of which made it difficult to get the sock shaping right, and I felt so bad about the years intervening between promise and product that I eventually capitulated on the knee sock part.

I'm afraid, too, that this isn't quite my finest hour, sock-wise, as it's been so hot this whole summer that my heart just hasn't been in knitting at all, and it seems to me to show a bit in these -- that funny little valley you get along the bottom of the foot if you don't tug the yarn a bit between needles in the round, a slackness at the heel flap/gusset join which I managed to disguise by winkling the extra wool a stitch at a time into the instep, a general air of ennui.

But they are Jaywalkers after all, and I am not the only one by any means to be charmed by their zigzaggy joie de vivre.  I've not made any before in a solid color, so this was quite fun.

So now I still have the unfinished felted random-stripe place mats, the red and white Selbu mittens, and the Setesdal scarf.  Shall I ignore the pretty-but-workhorse mittens I found in a drawer last month?

This is Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride in fuchsia and Handpaint in English Garden, which play quite nicely together.  Well, the wool is kind of scratchy, and the thumbs really are too tight -- so, out they go!

David took this photo of the eclipse Sunday night --

a triple event combining a full moon, a supermoon, when the moon's elliptical orbit makes it seem bigger in the sky than usual, and a lunar eclipse, which because the sun's rays have to pass through the Earth's atmosphere, makes the moon look reddish-orange.  Apparently this combination has happened only five times since 1900.  We could add some more rarities, actually -- that it was at a civilized hour (just past supper), and that the night was unusually clear for us here in smog-land!

Comments

[Mary Lou]

We had a clear, beautiful evening here, too. All summer it clouded up for anything we might want to see in the sky. Lots of light pollution, of course, but the moon didn't mind.

[David]

http://www.lifehack.org/319404/science-says-knitting-makes-humans-warmer-and-happier-mentally?