Remembering

Today I am remembering my dad (infantryman) and father-in-law (sailor) who both fought in WWII plus my half-brother who is a Canadian sergeant-major (retired) and served as a UN-sponsored peacekeeper in Egypt. Also I am extremely grateful that my husband or my son, who is a husband and father, never had to go to war. (Though as a black-belt ninja I'm sure my son would have been training fighters rather than fighting himself!) I am forever grateful to those who fought in the wars with the noblest of intentions but I sure wish nobody ever had to do anything like that. I can’t imagine how it must have been for them or for their families at home worrying. May I never find out.

My Jaywalker socks got a change of needle size to my usual 2 mm. I started to be afraid they would be too tight to get over my heel though at 4-1/2” the longest one still fits. They are knitted on 76 stitches which should be lots but the pattern stitch takes in considerably and isn’t particularly stretchy even though it’s mostly plain areas. It’s plain knitting on diagonals though which must be the difference. I’m hoping that the slightly larger needle size won’t be too obvious though the shorter sock is only an inch into the pattern so it should be fine. The longer one might be a bit more problematic. We’ll see after another inch or so. If I have to frog, so be it. I’d rather have socks that I can wear!

I also have a finished skein of yarn to show. The colours don’t look as interesting in the skein as they did in roving form but they actually go quite nicely with the brown-red skeins. Yes, I have weird taste in colours — but we all knew that, didn’t we? I still need to spin some more yarn to use for another multidirectional scarf. But first I have to fix my poor spinning wheel. Yes, Klaus the Louet Wheel has a broken drive cord, the first in 13 years. I finished my plying with a string substitute but it slips too much for comfort. I think I can use my heat tool to repair it. I’ll do some research first. A replacement band costs about $16 (for a piece of stretchy plastic!) so I hope I can fix it myself.