Big days

I tried writing early this morning, but just wasn't saying what I wanted to say, so I let it perk a while.  I'm tired and this is a special day.  It's Brian's birthday today.  In the past we have tried to get together at his favourite restaurant but with the kids being a bit bigger and his favourite place being an old fashioned pub style place it is harder. It is a nice place but it isn't family friendly.  Still, beginnings are much more important to celebrate then endings and ice cream cake at home is the order of the day.

There was a lot of knitting yesterday.  Simple very plain knitting.  I finished off the top of that pretty as springtime sock of mine first and immediately cast on for the toe of sock two. 

I know.  It isn't that exciting if you are a muggle but if you are a sock knitter, you will practically trip over your feet with how pretty these are.  I want to show you something I did a little differently than on my regular short row heel.

I wear out heels right at the start of the short row section.  It is almost always in exactly the same place.  I could map it out really.  It is why I don't always and only knit short row heels.  After thought heels are easy to replace but a hole right where the short rows join the plain knitting are just irritating.  Finally, after more than 10 years of knitting and wearing socks, it struck me that it might be smart to knit the last few rows of the foot section as garter stitch too to see if I could extend the life of the sock before repair was needed.  Time to give it a shot anyway.  

Toe two of that pair was putting me to sleep and I had lots of kid picking up at precise times to do. I needed to stay awake the whole day.  I picked up the other sock which was just a few rows up the foot section and worked on it

and did pretty well.  I did the first two rows of the heel and decided that children and their dinner were not a good mix with a short row heel.  Besides, it was time to head home and sleep.

And that is what I did.  I hope to get the heel done on this last sock today.  That way I have two socks for knitting when the kids are around. 

It's only sock knitting, a small thing for such a big day around our house. It is possible that there should be balloons and huge cards and silly presents, but this is really is how it ought to be.  His physical self might not be here, but he remains part of our ordinary lives as he ever was.