Summer break?

On accident, maybe.

It is hard to knit anything, but especially wool, when it is in the 90's with 80% or more humidity. So knitting takes a back-burner in the summer. I garden. I road-trip. I camp. I bike. I run 5ks (omg, who even am I?)

Sometimes, though, it's August 4, and it never gets much above 76. Those days, it's a great day to pull out your knitting and pick up an old WIP - or maybe start a new one.

Granmom, knitting the afternoon away.

This is my granmom. (Yes, I know I missed the "d". That's how I know I'm talking about my mom's mom, not my dad's mom). She's a knitter from way back - she knit all the family Christmas stockings. She doesn't knit those anymore. I think that job has so far fallen to my cousin, but may come 'round my way soon. Granmom just bought that spindle-toy for color work, and is working on a pretty sweet shawl from StevenBee, a local yarn store. 

Trying to figure out where the missing place marker goes. Fittingly, I did the figuring on top of the puzzle.

One of the cool things about knitting with Granmom is the exchange of information. These days, it tends to flow from me to her, but I certainly have learned lots from her! Probably the most common thing I do for her is decipher patterns - turn the knitting language into plain English, and then teach her the newest stitch, or increase. In fact, I just finished "translating" a pattern for her, so that she can have every single row written out, double-spaced, in a bigger font. 

Rechecking the pattern. The page is too small!

Knitting is kind of a community thing in my house. When I started taking photo's today, she'd stepped into the kitchen to make tea (remember, mid 70s in August), but Britt was knitting with us too. She's working on a hat, using a viscose and linen yarn. It's working up lovely, but complaints about needle size - too tiny! - are flying fast and furious. 

The hat, abandoned for tea making. 

And, of course, we are currently a household of 5 cats. All of whom want to be in the room with us as we work. Very helpful, I can assure you!

A fuzzy photo of Monster, the youngest. I've just pulled my yarn out of her mouth and she is NOT happy about it. 

I have some pretty cool life changes that have happened/are happening/will happen, but I'll save those for another post, so I actually have incentive to post again this month!