Picking You Up When You Are Down.

I may be suffering a bit of a hangover/layover/leftover from having such an intensely busy weekend.  It was oddy intense.  I was working on the stove top and had to watch the temperature constantly.  I was learning something new and I really wanted to have it all work out.  Th result seems to be that I am tired in a different way than sleepy tired, though sleeping well would really help resolve it.  

But besides all the dying adventures, in between them really, there was a lot of knitting.  You know.  Put stuff in dye bath, knit, check temp and so on.  A lot of knitting.

Cassie's purple sweater is complete.

I am very pleased with the way this turned out and I do hope she likes it.  The basic child's raglan pattern from Anne Budd's Knitter's Handy Book of Top Down Sweaters and some very pretty Brigg's and Little Regal from my trip this summer.  There is enough left for a vest for me if I use the colours opposite of this, more light than dark, so that is what will be. I still have the zipper to put in.

And when that was done, there was still stuff in the dye pot.  So I knit some more.

I finished the purple socks for me and put in the heel as well, all while waiting for the dye process to be done.  The pattern is the Broken Seed Stitch Socks by Hanna Levaniemi, a really nice little free pattern on Ravelry.  I only had an inch or so of the second sock to knit to complete these.

That pretty much took up the weekend.  Which brings us to yesterdays sort of hangover/layover/leftover thinking and feeling.  

I had dug out the next of the socks waiting for finishing in this sock drought year, the evening before.  It was sitting there so I picked it up to knit with my morning coffee.  It was the second sock but that second sock was depressingly short.  It was barely 2 inches from the toe.  It looked like I felt.  Depressingly...tired in my case, rather than short, and as I knit it, it felt as if that was all I had to give into the world.  Just pain rounds on a plain sock.

I doddered along, digging through my WIP boxes for the other more interesting sock.  There is only one pattern repeat and a toe left on that pair, but I stayed knitting the simple sock.  It was enough. I kept thinking I ought to wind yarn or do something towards the next little sweater but no.  That plain stuff was enough.  I just sort of knit, sitting on my knitting chair, not watching what was happening on my needle, not focusing on anything, not in that zen you can go into, just sort of being, and being very tired. 

This happened.

Which spooked me in a way.  It isn't that I did not notice I was knitting, it was that I was too tired to care a whole lot.  I was on autopilot.  And suddenly it was long enough for ribbing. It felt right to just keep going on them till they were done.  Long before bedtime, the cuff was complete.

I knit these in a monster sock way.  I had  very dull skein of Patons, Kroy and  soft gray Sisu sock yarn and added in pairs of charcoal stripes every so often of from a leftover ball of Elann sock yarn to give it a little bit of punch.  It was a good choice.  These socks needed the punch. 

These are going into the bag with all those waiting for heels and one day, very shortly, I am going to start working on that small task to take them to wearable.  

So that is that. Just a few days ago, I was bemoaning the lack of socks in my sock parade.  Since that day I completed three of the four pairs I had on the go.  I submit I am doing just fine.  The real bonus is that as worn out as I felt yesterday, I feel good to go this morning.  

Socks. Picking you up when you need it and warm to boot.