The Summer Swing

It's been over two weeks since my last blog entry and I've been getting a little flack from a certain friend of mine because I haven't posted in a while.  *coughleighcough*  But it's summer and that means a bit of craziness.  We were away for a week visiting my family in PA, where my mom had planned a plethora of fun things to do - Arts & Crafts festival (with only vendor that had yarn - can you say "lame?"), big family Fourth of July picnic (and all the food & prep that goes with it), Kennywood, the Pittsburgh Zoo, and Idlewild Park.  We made it to all of them except Idlewild since it rained on our last day there, thus eliminating the amusement/water park from the schedule.  Needless to say, there wasn't a ton of free time for knitting, but I did manage to squeeze in some work on my BFF socks here and there.

The best surprise was during my attempt to knit in the car on our 9-hour drive home.  I had created a contraption made up of cardboard blinders and a baseball cap to block my peripheral vision and hopefully allow me to do something in the car other that sit, fidget, stare out the window, and try not to complain that I was bored or that I had restless leg syndrome AGAIN.  It not only looked ridiculous, but it made it difficult to look around when I actually wanted to raise my head for a break.  So since we were on a fairly straight highway without much scenery near the side of the road, I took a chance, took it off, and tried to knit.

I should let you know that I get completely pukey in the car when I even so much as try to look at anything resembling text or anything in the seat behind me.  Look down to check an address?  Pukey.  Look up a number on my phone.  Nauseous.  Turn around in answer to the "Mommy!  Look at this!" requests from the back seat.  Heave-inducing.  So I wasn't hopeful about the knitting and was prepared to quickly look up, recline my seat a little, and blow the highest AC setting onto my face should my carsickness rear its ugly head.

Miracle of miracles!  I could knit!!!  I did it!  I turned just slightly towards the center of the car to minimize the trees whooshing by out of the passenger window, made sure to look up as much as possible, and it definitely helped that BFF is an easy pattern that I had memorized so there was no need to look at any charts.  (If I had to add reading into the mix, it would have gotten ugly.)

Here's a picture of my progress at our last stop in PA before we crossed into NY.

BFF Sock at Matamoris, PA Welcome Center

We got home from PA on July 9th in the evening, and I finished my BFF socks on the 11th.  Less than halfway through the month.

Dominic & BFF Socks

With more than half the month left, I had plenty of time to get back to work on Stricken, which have been in knitting purgatory since mid-June.  At least that's what I should have done...