It is at last the Summer Solstice and I am so happy to be knitting in the wild again.  And what a better way than with a pair of socks, on this longest day of the year, when because the sun is blaringly bright and hot, and the shadows reluctant to be seen, I have waited until the hazy late hours of the afternoon. Chores are done; bread baked, coffee roasted, laundry on the line, dinner in the pot, and so I’m scampering along my little trail, navigating over, under, around still falling burned trees . . .

Rather hidden paths I have every intention to keep maintained by walking, but so much work to get them established, especially  through the now drying & stickery meadowy woods.

I have wanted to try two fine fingering yarns held together in a sock, for a color rich tweedy affect and thick and downy merino soft too.  So I am knitting speedily along with only 50 stitches in a pair of Walking With Emma socks, in Chart B which has an easy 1×1 rib cuff flowing into a wider & longer rib. I’ll work rib then with an inch left to the leg, switch to stockinette for the rest of the sock. The counting of this particular rib is so natural for me, with odd numbers of knit & purl; (knit) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — (purl) 1 — 1, 2, 3 — 1.  A sturdy snug little sock to slip into my garden sloggers to go down and water the garden, and this sock will be the “vanilla sock” I’ve been waiting to try, because sometimes the artful is in the plain & simple. I will talk more about the yarn later, but I’m loving this moss green and grey stone colorway by the way!  Oh, and I am knitting these on metal circulars, for although I fell in love late in life, with hardwood dpns (double pointed needles), the circulars allow me to just trip along on the trail without worrying about pulling a needle out or breaking or snagging my dpns in my knitting bag. And I really must confess, that I seriously need a break from the Pile O’ Yokes, which are now becoming yokes with bodies and sleeves. Anyway, its summer and I want to start knit-walking again, something it seems I’m always having to “start over” again, which is silly, but in order to pull myself away to get out on the trail and still get knitting done I really need a project I can not think about, something I can walk over logs, and under fallen trees, and not drop a stitch. Something that I can rattle off fast and furiously and shake off all that ails me!

Happy Summer Solstice!