fireworks

Finally, a weekend off to catch up on the blog and do a little gardening.

I didn't think anyone was really following this blog until I made a mistake last week and published a draft of one of my posts in error.

(My mom told me she read a strange blurb with no pictures and a lot of gibberish about the summer solstice etc., but was then surprised to find it missing the next time she logged on.)

Let's hope most of you missed that post too. I was behind on sleep and apparently eye/finger coordination when I shut my computer down for the night. The long hours that I'm required to be in the design studio have taken some time to get used to, but I'm back on my game today after a weekend of lazy summer mornings and evenings playing croquet on the back lawn.

I'm posting these socks this weekend because the photo I took of them makes me think of a colorful explosion of fireworks against a clear night sky. 

(That's my sister again, modeling. Give her a new pair of socks and she'll do just about any crazy thing for a photo shoot.)

The neat thing about these socks is that they are hand dyed and hand spun. This is double ply merino top. The pattern was inspired by Lynn Vogel's The Twisted Sister's Sock Workbook, a publication that I believe I've mentioned before and highly recommend . . . at least if you want to take your sock knitting to the next level. (That is, If you want to shoot for the stars like a bottle rocket.)

Back to school tomorrow, but I want to tell you all that I have located my knitting bag amidst the clutter of packing boxes and general disarray of my new apartment and I'm dedicated to completing a few pattern repeats  on my current project each day.

What can I say, my life might be completely frantic right now, but knitting keeps me sane.

P. S. The oak tree featured in this post is a very dear friend of mine. She's stood in our back woods since my grandfather was a boy. Can you see the twist in her trunk? Like most mature oak trees she has a hollow trunk surrounded by a living shell of fiber and protective bark. Her branches are a great place for a photo shoot. (And no one fell out.)