That time of the year again

Such a soothing rhythm to the seasons and the years.  This time of year, I'm knitting a pair of socks for my sweetie.  Double strand of worsted weight, 32 stitches, on size 8 knitting needles.  Takes almost no time to knit up, which is wonderful.  I used to knit standard socks for him, but he wears them only once or twice a year.  He wears these really thick socks almost every day around the house.  With afterthought heels - that's where the holes end up - I can simply crochet replacement heels (single strand of worsted weight) when the time comes.

Once I get the socks done down past where the marking is for where the heels will be, they are more interesting at the county fair, coming up, where I hang out at the knitting guild table on a couple of days:  a pair of tubes in process hanging from a really long circular needle, both being stitched at the same time.

But that's just one project.  A recent post on Ravelry, in the crochet group, asked about how to work a triangle shawl as a rectangle, with the rows just back and forth.  Well - that's a whole 'nother sampler project:  reincarnations of a pattern stitch.  It can be in rows, in rounds (with corners), in rounds (making massive increases to be circular), in a triangle (with a center increase), on the diagonal, just a single repeat to make an edging, or in a mile-a-minute style (making strips that join to make a rectangle).   And that's just the possibilities I can think of off the bat.  And they will all look different, have different personalities, even though the stitch is technically the same.  So I'll be working on that and posting pictures as they happen.

Then there's stitching for gifts.  Stitching for charity.  Finishing up projects that are in process (it does feel good to finish something).  It feels like the start of a whole new year.  Review photos off my camera - upload them onto my computer and sort them into the appropriate folders, and back it all up.  It sounds easy, but takes time.  I was doing this last year, about this time, and the year before.  Is there a space-time continuum warp going on here? 

And then, there's the September issue of the fashion magazines - all ten million pages of mostly pictures.  I love going through the fashion magazines for ideas to crochet.  The ideas come from all over:  use of color, motifs, designs, shapes,  There's never really anything new under the sun - or if there is, it is so strange it doesn't compute for me - but the trick and the fun is thinking about all the ideas floating around and playing with them again or for the first time.  Lots of playing.  Yup, here we go again.

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