Mikknit

I think I’m going to be back here for a while. With one kid in school full-time and the other one in preschool a few days a week, I feel like I’m finally getting my brain back to some semblance of functionality. I’m not knitting any faster, though. Can’t quite figure that out, except for the fact that I’ve been trying to work harder on cleaning and cooking for my family. Not always succeeding with that, but when you get a huge box of vegetables every couple of weeks it’s harder to justify ordering in or going out for dinner. It’s still a chore to convince the kids to eat this stuff, though - they’re not huge fans of winter squash, potatoes, carrots, or the other root vegetables that we’re overstocked with. I suppose I need to just start cooking what I like and laying in a store of PB&J and quesadilla supplies.

On to the knitting!

Garter Rib sock in Panda Cotton, Kiwi-Mango colorway

I’ve been knitting socks for a long time now, close to 8 years. In all that time, I’ve focused pretty much exclusively on wool and other animal fibers for my socks. The one pair of socks I’d knit from a cotton blend (cotton-wool, I believe) didn’t turn out great and I figured it was best to just leave the cotton socks to people in warmer climates.

In this time, I’ve been knitting socks for lots of the people I love - my husband, my mom, my sister, one of my aunts. Another aunt has made comments implying envy over everyone else’s handknit socks (we tend to compare socks at family gatherings - there are two prolific knitters in the family), but she has a genuine wool allergy and had assumed that she was out of luck due to wool content in all of the cotton sock yarns. I stumbled upon Panda Cotton at Borealis and decided to give it a try. My impression from knitting with the stuff is that it’s very nice - the bamboo makes for a lovely soft fabric, it’s not so elastic that I need to worry about my tension, and it feels nice on my hands. I have no idea how it will wear, but I can see myself knitting with it in the future. It gets a little bit splitty in the casting-on, but if you don’t have to frog your work and redo the cast-on a couple times it’s not quite so bad!

It would appear that I’ve used up all of my sitting-at-the-computer time this morning, so off I go.

7 months have passed since I posted here. What can I say - life got busy and I felt like I had nothing of note to say. I still don’t have much to say, but I just wanted to pop in and remind folks to vote. This election is hugely important, and we all need to get out there and make our voices heard.

I am incredibly excited and also scared to death of what’s going to happen - will my candidate win? Will the other guy win? Where will the new president lead our country - out of Iraq? Into happier economic times? Away from global warming? I know what the projections are saying, and it’s thrilling to read, but having gotten my hopes dashed in the last election I’m holding back a little bit, just in case.

I have about a block to walk to my polling place. Hopefully the wait will be reasonable and I’ll be able to get in a decent bike ride afterwards, to ride off some of the stress of anticipation. I’ll be bringing my knitting with me, of course. I’m never without that - I even haul it with me on my bike rides, knowing full well that there’s never time or inclination to knit during rest stops. As for what I’ll be working on, it’ll probably be socks - always a good waiting-in-line project. Or else a hat - this *is* Minnesota after all and while it’s been in the 70s for the last few days, snow is projected in just a few more days. Hats are always good, especially when the kids have grown out of last year’s hats.

And off I ramble. Good luck everyone, be patient with your neighbors in line and with the election workers. We all want the same thing in the end, we just have different views about the route to take there.