Drained

Okay, so it was only four days straight. I was going to go back out and help my parents again today, but I think they're getting a little sick of me. My mom, in almost so many words, told me not to come back today. I know they appreciated my help, but we're not a see-one-another-all-of-the-time family at the best of times. Doing it under these stressful conditions was probably not the wisest move.

They have more stuff than I ever imagined, and I knew they had a lot of stuff. It was all tightly packed into and onto and over and under various pieces of furniture, and hanging from walls and ceilings...needless to say, once we started pulling things out of their homes, the stuff took a deep breath and expanded exponentially over every available surface, flat or otherwise. It gave me an urge to sort and purge my own stuff, but I haven't acted on it yet because I'm still recovering from theirs.

My jelly bean stripes sock has been sorely neglected due to all of the totin' and haulin' and liftin', but I did get past the gusset decreases this evening, so I felt some progress had been made.

Did I mention that Ebbie got me a wool winder for my birthday? The LYS he ordered it from only got it in a week or so ago, but I still haven't had a chance to use it, though I have read the interesting English-as-a-second-language directions that came with it. 'Course, since I don't have a swift, I'll still have to put skeins on my feet or a chair, but it's a start, and I do have things that need to be wound...maybe this weekend.

I bought Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter, by everyone's favorite witty knitter (yeah, I know, I'm just so clever, right?). I like what I've seen so far, of course, and she certainly brightened what has been an odd, out-of-sorts day. So thank you, Stephanie, for doing what you do so well.

Oh, knitting tie-in to the massive clear-out effort at the folks. Not only did I end up with a couple of bags of odds and ends of yarn, but I found the weirdest pair of baby socks yesterday. I didn't keep them because they were really moth-eaten, though I am kicking myself a little now(especially since I didn't think to take photos first!).

They were knit in the round to the gusset, then the stitches were separated in half, as sock stitches are wont to be at that point. The heel flap was knit until it was long enough to be a heel, the foot flap was knit until it was twice as long as the foot minus the heel, then the foot flap was folded and sewn along the sides of the foot, the heel flap was folded in half along the live edge and sewn, then the live edge of the foot flap was sewn to the gusset edges of the heel flap.

The explanation probably doesn't make sense, especially without a photo, but they were sort of interesting. I can't see using the construction for anything but baby socks, though. The seam down the center of the heel didn't look like something comfortable to walk on.

Sorry so random, just needed to get something down. Nice weekend, all.