Not a monkey sock thing in sight.

Much though I love all this blanket knitting, blankets can be hard on the hands.  By yesterday afternoon, I needed somehting different.  

For the last few weeks, one of the bookks in my bathroom 'library' is my copy of Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks.  I love this sock book.  It is all patterns of socks from the vintage sources, Weldon's Practical Needlework. They are not ornate in general, but are useful practical sock patterns.  I have long intended to knit all the socks in the book.

I keep getting waylaid at this pattern, Gentleman's Shooting Socks

I've knit this pattern once before, years ago and it was a kind of comfort at the time.  It was enough to keep my mind occupied with counting and tracking my place in the pattern but I could put it down and pick it up and know just where I was by knitting just a few stitches.  I wish I could say it was a really comfortable sock, but I had barely finished knitting the second sock when I lost one of the pair.  I suspect it got lost, clinging inside something I was tossing out.  It feels like the right sort of sock to be doing this week as I try to sort out where I was before the baby stuff came up.

I came home to a pile of mail.  I had packages coming in from all over the place.  I wanted to try some Tru Earth Laundry deteregent strips and they finally arrived.  I had several packages of really long shipping time things from Amazon, some movies with Peter Ustinov in them, fabric from my usual online fabric source, Fabricville, and these.

A package of suspender clips.  I know.  Weird, but...

I have some Sport yarn from Briggs and Little purchased while I was on my Epic Adventure to knit another  Kay's Tess of the D'Ubervilles Shawl. (available now on Lovecrafts).  

I loved it, but my mods to make it wide enough to tie up behind my back ended up making the shawl less than sturdy. It was like wearng a sweater without the fuss of arms, long enough at the back to keep my forever chilly lower back toasty warm, and tied at the waist to keep it neatly in place.  The only part I found difficult was the sizable knot made with the knit fabric.  

My plan has always been to knit it again but I have never been sure of how to close it.  I thought of long icords at the tips but that limits the number of ways to wear it.  In my meandering through sewing I  was looking for clips for a possible pair of overalls, and found suspender clips.  In my ripples on the pond way of  thinking this led directly to a solution for a second Tess shawl.  There will be an icord, with a clip at each end to catch and firmly secure the tips of the shawl on my back.  Further, I can use it to wear a few other shawls in my closet that I could wear as a sontag as well.  

Which just really makes me want to sepnd the entire day searching for good triangle shawls on Ravelry to wear as sontags, sigh. only I won't.  Sigh.  Maybe another day.