Morning, folks. I think I posted about this when it actually happened, but as last night was likely my last regular attendance at weekly knitting night, allow me to tell you a brief sock story. Back in the fall, my internet was down for at least a week. My ISP couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and I was frantically working on all of my graduate school applications, so I was spending an hour or so every night at the coffee shop closest to my house. One Tuesday evening, when I stopped in to submit some forms and check email, I noticed a table of women who looked incredibly fun doing something with their hands — I had to look again to confirm that they were actually knitting! I introduced myself and asked if I could join them. Luckily for me, I had one of those fleece artist yellow tiger socks in my bag. They welcomed me and encouraged me, and soon I was knitting with them every Tuesday night. I’m heading to Base Camp next week, and then off to New Home for graduate school, and while I am going to try to meet up with them whenever I come into town on a Tuesday, yesterday was the first of all of my goodbyes. They marked (ha) my departure with an incredibly sweet and unexpected gift: gorgeous sock-sized stitch markers from Hide and Sheep (on etsy).

See how the marker itself isn’t simply circular?

It was all I could do to keep myself from casting on another pair of socks at 11 PM last night, just to admire these on a sock in progress. I am plugging away at Sunday Market Shawl number 2 — brought the remains of the one the dog gnawed through to show and tell last night, and am slowly adding length to its replacement. Here’s a rather blurry picture that shows the gorgeousness of the purples in this Dream in Color Smooshy yarn:

You’d think stockinette wouldn’t be tricky, but when I yanked this out of my bag last night, I managed to pull out a bunch of stitches and picked them back up all weird. Ramona to the rescue!

I feel incredibly lucky to have found such a wonderful “real life” knitting community — I will be thinking of you guys on Tuesday nights this summer — and I will particularly miss the “mommy” talk.