Waiting = Knitting

Durwood had a long test and then an appointment with a doctor (good news all around, whew) so I took my sock project along to keep my fingers and mind busy.   I got halfway through the heel flap.  Yay!  I can't say enough how much I'm loving knitting this Chimney sock using the Campfire Socks pattern.  It's easy to memorize and using self-striping yarn makes me keep knitting to see what color comes next.  I should probably go look at my sock yarn to see what else I want to see "what comes next" to line up the next sock project.  You do understand that I only knit one sock, right?  DIL1 got me started wearing mismatched socks 6 or 7 years ago and it's a habit I can't seem to break, in fact, the first pair of socks I knitted with this pattern was indeed a pair and a friend told me I'd made a mistake because the socks matched.  I assured her that I wouldn't be wearing them together so it was okay.

I just reread Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's book Knitting Rules! and it meant a lot more to me this time.  She kind of gives a person permission to knit things the way that makes sense to you, not to stick to the letter of the pattern all the time but to make it work for you.   Somehow that made me feel like I was the boss of my knitting even more than I already did.  Whatever the reason I feel like my knitting attitude just took a leap forward.

The neck edge of the Khaki Cardi's a case in point.  First, I finished the second sleeve at knitting last night.  (Can I get a woohoo?)  I thought I'd slavishly follow the directions but then I thought since I've made a white and black stripe at the hem and cuffs I ought to carry that up to the neck.  So this morning I started picking up neck stitches with the white, not as many as the pattern said (I caught myself counting stitches even though what I was doing looked right) but enough, I knit back, now I'll follow the directions for the tie and neck edge using the black.  It's going to look awesome, I just know it.