Month in Review: July

Another month down, another five to go. This month was fairly productive, compared to June. Early in the month, I finished my Elemental Boatneck.

I knit yet another pair of socks—Cookie A’s Clandestine.

I think I’m a little over socks at the moment, because my go-to easily portable project this month has been shawls. I knit two of them this month; the second one I just finished yesterday. The first one was Perseverance and was a gift to a gal who has worn it at least twice since I gifted it, even though the temperatures are in the upper 90s/lower 100s and it’s 100% wool.

Most recently I knocked out Arroyo a bottom-up shawl knit in worsted weight. This is a wonderful free pattern with an easy lace repeat and squishy garter stitch body. Properly modeled photos and a dedicated FO post to come eventually, hopefully, after the move.

For next month’s socks, I had a choice to make. As you know, last year I made a list of eighteen sock patterns that I was keen to knit and for which I had the yarn. I ran the random number generator like a good panda and it told me that I should knit Wendy Johnson’s Bob and Weave socks from Toe-Up Socks for Everbody. At the same time, though, I wanted to work on training myself to knit yarn as I buy it (and if I’m being honest, I really just wanted to knit something Harry Potter–related), so I wanted to knit my Nemesis socks this month in my He Who Shall Not Be Named yarn.

And then I realized that I’d packed up all of my knitting books, so it was really a moot point and if I want to start on socks early in the month, it’ll have to be the pattern I can easily print out and not have to dig through a bunch of boxes to find the book. So we’re going off script this month and knitting Nemesis!

Wasn’t that exciting?

And curse that “yarn diet” goal.

Technically, those top three, the Wollmeise skeins, were purchased in June, but they arrived this month. And then I got sucked in by the Harry Potter yarns on Jimmy Beans Wool. And then I sort of failed and bought the Malabrigo at Fancy Tiger’s anniversary party. BUT. All of those skeins, save “Intelligence” (aka Ravenclaw), have projects assigned to them—in fact, the Malabrigo is mostly used up, thanks to my Arroyo. THAT, my friends, is progress.