A dark, cold, rainy night...

Here in New England, we have been enjoying a very hot, humid summer.  The thing that always surprises me about New England summers is that just when the heat peaks, all of a sudden you have this one day where it starts to rain.  Rather than just clearing out the humidity, there is a little hint of a chill, letting you know that fall is just around the corner.  Today is that day.

I must admit, I am not ready for fall.  The seasons are short here, except for winter of course, and I am just not ready for it to be winter again.

The upside is, the change in weather motivated me to start a new project.  I realized that although my original goal was sock-related, I have not done many socks lately.  So I chose a yarn from the stash and a pattern from one of my new sock books (I recently bought three!), and I cast on Cookie A's Asymmetric Cables from "Sock Knitting Master Class".  It is going a little slow, mainly because my left hand keeps cramping up.  I am having more and more trouble with this as time goes on. 

I started crafting really young, and used to spend hours and hours crocheting with really tiny thread.  I always figured the time would come where I would no longer be able to use my hands the way I would like, and I fear that time is coming.

I am trying out one of my skeins of "A Verb for Keeping Warm" Superwash Sock, and it is not quite what I expected.  First, although it is supposed to be merino, it does not have that silky, merino feel.  It actually feels much more like leicester wool (though not BFL.  More like the rough, boiled wool you think of with sweaters from the 60's), but scratchier than superwash.  Also, the color is bleeding all over my hands as I knit.  I am hoping they soften up with washing, but worry the color will bleed enough that I will lose a shade or two.  Which is too bad really, because the color of this skein is a gorgeous variegation of plums, reds, and purples.  It also does not have very much elasticity.  My ribbing is stretched out just from the knitting and does not really snap back.  I think the lack of memory in the yarn is also slowing up my knitting a bit as I have a hard time inserting the needle into the purl stitches, and that does not usually happen to me.  Besides that, my week of being sick during and after my South America trip really drained my energy, and I just have not had the will to knit much.

I hope to finish up sock one tonight, and maybe sock two in another day or two.  The pattern is easily memorized, so I am moving a bit faster than I did the first day.  At least I have my glorious chilly, rainy day to inspire me.  Hurrah for fall! (Even if it does mean winter is coming...)