FINISHED SOCKS

Every year I write some variation of "summer is kicking my butt" and I guess I should stop thinking of it that way. Summer is a time for me to be present with my kids (and they are 14 so you know that if they want to hang with me, I should take that!), and just enjoy not having to be up at 6:30 and rushing around until we fall into bed at 10:30.

Summer is also a time when I think many people don't want to knit sweaters or blankets, because they are so big they are hard to drag places, and also it is hot and you don't want a huge blanket ON you when it is 90 degrees. A few summers ago, I declared it to be sock summer--in which I was going to darn and knit only socks. Last summer I finished sweaters.

This summer--I'm just taking things as they come. At least that's what I'm telling myself. Last summer I knit all summer on a pair of socks and boy howdy. The first sock was too narrow. So I knit the second sock a bit wider (and it is still snug), and I ended up ripping the narrow sock out. Then I um put it aside.

Then in November, I started another pair of socks. And this one gave me such fits. After, I finished that I also set it aside...

So with the last two sock projects ending up as single socks, You can understand why I was super excited to actually FINISH a whole PAIR of socks!

Finished #socks swipe for a closeup.

A post shared by Jodie (@ja_gardner) on Jul 8, 2017 at 7:33am PDT

I actually finished them on the drive to our vacation destination. And was doing the bind off as we decided every morning what we were going to do. But of course that meant that we still had an eight hour drive home (which turned into a lot more because of traffic). Things had been so hectic in us trying to get going on vacation (a mere week after school ended and children were still comatose from the stress relief after finals--and right in the middle of a short strawberry season) that I simply had no time to plan a new project. So I grabbed the ripped sock, needles I thought I had used and went with it.

And I spent 4 hours knitting a sock that was way too big.

So, another rip, another start (which thankfully was all in the car so no options for starting something else) and now I actually have most of a sock. No pictures though because again summer...I'm living it not photographing it. Plus, I have to save something else to write about maybe while girls are at camp. I'm actually thinking about digging out the OTHER pattern for the OTHER single sock and perhaps this can be second sock summer.

So, I also mentioned strawberries. I made 6 batches of strawberry jam this year. And a double batch of strawberry lemonade because I accidentally bought enough lemons to make that happen (go me). Today I picked up sour cherries at farmers market so, cherry jam is happening today! Sour cherry jam is one of the grossest things for me to make, but also it is one of the tastiest.