I wanted to knit something for my boys to wear for Easter. I bought some beautiful mercerized cotton worsted, but they didn't have enough to make vests for both of them (and I don't have time in the next ten days anyway). So, I decided to knit them matching ties. The ties will roughly coordinate with the girls' Easter outfits, so it should all work out.
Today I cast on for the first tie, and I plan on posting a pattern when I've got it reasonably done. It'll be in beta until it has been tested a few times, but I'll try to remember to put it in a pdf for download.
In other news, I finished the baby's socks--but they're not the best fit. I'm hoping that her feet won't grow for a while, and that her chubby little legs thin out a bit. Then they'll fit better. What do you do with socks that don't fit? Frog 'em? Give them away? I'm struggling with some serious apprehension about going to work on other socks for kids (or myself!), since I'm not too sure they'll work out. I've got more than 3,000 stitches in on a sock for myself . . . only 14,000 to go. Question is, will I like it? {small worried sigh}
Today's post is lean on photos because the kids and I made a grand loop down to the big city to pick up my Dad, whose truck had broken down. We took him to the truck yard (more than an hour away from the big city), paused at my parents' house for a wiggle break, then came back home (another 40 minute drive). On the way home, I saw a lady I go to church with along the side of the road with a flat. So we stopped and waited with her (safety in numbers) until her husband arrived with the spare. That added almost 30 minutes to the trip home. So, we got home at 4:52pm, four hours and forty-two minutes after leaving the house. Quite the trip.
There were so many times on the drive that I kicked myself for not bringing the camera. An old building façade in a lovely spring blue with striking white lettering: REID 1819. The sign diagramming the impossibly complex intersection of 41 and 90. Clouds and impossibly blue sky. Rock faces washed bright with snowmelt showing their mineral hues of rust, rich brown, orange and gray. Mossy rock faces and slopes where nature's bonsai grow. The river, running smooth and high, while the sun danced from ripple to ripple fit to make my heart break.
I grew up in the Sacramento River Delta. My Dad's farm was bounded at one end by the river, and at the other end by the state highway. Everywhere we went, we drove along the river first. Early winter mornings, the river would steam like hot tea. Late morning in summer it would nearly blind you to look at it. On windy afternoons the water would turn brown, green waves ridden by whitecaps. That river never swelled with snowmelt, nor did it drop during the winter as this one does. It surprises me sometimes how much I miss that home from so long ago; the home that's now no more. While I no longer ride the levee to get to town, I do get to cross bridges and occasionally take the old road back to the not-so-big city, following the river for the first third of the way. I lack the ocean longing Vern's family feels; but the river ties run deep. Deeper than I'd ever thought, until today.
