My energies have been devoted elsewhere recently, which ought to mean that I’ve been getting lots of writing done, but what that really means is that I’ve been watching a lot of tv with nothing in my hands. That’s not usually a good sign, although I’m willing to cut myself a little slack due to the combination of finishing two projects last week and allergies running unabated until today (when we switched allergy medications from what was effective during the spring to what we used last year, allowing us to breathe again without huge bouts of coughing, sneezing, and other cold-mimicking symptoms). Nonetheless, this weekend will see me finish off this sock I was supposed to work on in August:

I have 24 more rows of pattern (two repeats) and then an inch or so of ribbing before it’s time to bind off. While I am perfectly capable of knitting my socks up or down, I really prefer how speedy the post-heel knitting of top-down socks generally are with patterning on at most half the stitches and a decrease in overall quantity at the end. It just feels faster to get the leg out of the way first. This leg feels like it’s been in progress forever.

Once I’m done with this, it’s back to my shawl and my years-on-the-needles Hey Teach! sweater. I’m also going to cast on a new sock project or two. That will be exciting.

Reading has been a bit slow all summer long, much to my disappointment. But I’m meandering my way through Kathy Reichs’ Virals (the first in the series that focuses on the niece of forensic anthropologist Temperence Brennan) and I began the first Harry Potter again this week, with all the hoopla about the arrival of September 1, the day every year when the Hogwarts Express whisked young witches and wizards away for the beginning of term.

Waiting in the wings is Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior and A.S. King’s Ask the Passengers, which made its way off my to-read list and onto my request-from-the-library list when author Eliot Schrefer raved about it on Twitter.

(Yarning along with Ginny)

One of the groups I belong to on Ravelry is Sock Knitters Anonymous, which, 11 months of the year, hosts organized sock knitting challenges. I am notoriously bad at following through on intentions to knit along with them.

The 12th month of the year, though, is officially a respite for the group’s moderators, allowing them to organize and prepare for the next year’s challenges, which start in September. Group members have, however, taken up the slack and host an informal knitalong in August designed to encourage those tardy finishers amongst us to free up our needles and replenish our sock drawers.

I have, in some form or another, 14 pairs of unfinished socks. This month’s challenge seems custom-suited to me. Some socks are just started, the barest of toes or cuffs. Others are completed single socks and three of them are partially into the second sock. It is these three pairs that I am concentrating on finishing up this month:

The blue are Sherlockian Socks, started in April 2012; the green are Sockdolager, cast on for Sock Madness in March 2013; and the multicolored stripes, Fruitcake, are my current plain jane knit that I work on during concerts, outdoor movies, and baseball games and were cast on last December. If I can get through them, I’ll have to reassess what remains and see what are the next likeliest to complete.

But I’d be happy with just those three pairs up there.

I’m still reading and knitting the same things I was two weeks ago, although I’m further along with all of them.

Here’s my Éclair Shawl:

(Did you know, by the way, that éclair is the French word for lightning and that the pastry is so named because the filling resembles it when piped in?)

I’m working the second panel of six or seven, now. It’s slow going, but isn’t too difficult, except for making sure that I don’t shortchange myself rows.

I’m still reading Just One Day and A Monstrous Regiment of Women, although I’m now 2/3 and 1/3 through them, respectively. I’m enjoying both books, although they share little in common thus far, except maybe a desire for self-determination on the part of the main characters. I’m also listening to Penny Marshall read her memoir, My Mother Was Nuts. The beginning was a little confusing, but became less so when I took my iPod off of its shuffle songs setting. I was having such a hard time understanding why her friend was doing heroin in middle school… When listened to in correct chapter order, the narrative is laugh-out-loud funny, and Marshall’s delivery is done in her trademark deadpan. The book needed a stronger editor (there’s a lot of unnecessary repetition), but so far that’s my only complaint.

Now that I’m not watching hours of Tour coverage every night, I expect my reading will pick back up again.

Check out what others are knitting and reading at Ginny’s blog.

My grandmother turned 92 back in March and, unable to think of a better gift, I decided to knit her something. My mother recommended a shawl, saying she was often trailing one of the other shawls she owned behind her walker. I thought that a shawl that buttoned might work and Ravelry offered me suggestions.

The pattern I picked is Erika Flory’s Cabled Button Wrap. I knit it in worsted Shepherd Wool in Antique Rose, a sort of corally color that’s hard to photograph well, using slightly less than 2.5 skeins.

We all thought I’d get it done quickly. That didn’t turn out to be the case.

But, then, a couple weeks ago, my grandmother had another health scare and I thought, I am going to be so annoyed with myself if she dies and this stupid thing is still on the needles.

So I finished it and blocked it, all in advance of heading up there last weekend. Everything except for buttons, which I couldn’t find a combination of right size and beauty.

Luckily, the yarn store in Somers offered several options, and I picked these:

The shawl has three buttons and only one buttonhole, offering several ways to wear it. But as long as one of them keeps the shawl on her, so it’s not dragging behind her, I’ll consider it a success.

I knit several extra repeats and the total length was a few inches longer than my 55″ blocking mat.

I can offer you no modeled shots because one doesn’t ask a very senior citizen to do a photo shoot of woolenwear during a heatwave. At least not one you like.

Every Wednesday, Ginny at Small Things hosts a Yarn Along:

Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading?

This is an appalling picture of my current knitting project in low-light, low-battery (and thus flash-less) conditions:

The zigzaggy thing is the start of a shawl. Specifically, Frankie Brown’s Lightning Shawl. The yarn is Crazy Zauberball and is much brighter than this picture would suggest. The needles are US5 straights, although I continue to second-guess the size choice. The project is my Tour de France knit. I started yesterday. The Tour ends in ten days. Yes, I know the odds are stacked against me. However, what this really means is that a new shawl is on the needles because the last one is off them! Stop back on Friday for pictures.

The books I’m currently reading are Gayle Forman’s Just One Day, the story of a recent high school grad on a European tour who randomly decides to visit Paris with a guy she barely knows. It got lots of good reviews over the winter, and I’m taking part in a French-themed blog event (Hey! I’m taking part in a French-themed blog event. I’ll tell you more about it later in the week!) throughout July, so this seemed a good fit.

The other book is The Monstrous Regiment of Women, the second novel in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes mystery series by Laurie King. It’s one of the ten books I hope to read this summer, and one I’m considering taking to the beach this weekend.

What are you reading? And what are on your needles?

Look at what arrived in the mail today, smelling slightly like jelly beans through its packaging:

That would be my prize for the first round of Sock Madness (posing here with the second sock of the pair, currently in progress). It’s two bars of soap homemade by Julie in one of my favorite scents, violet.

But, Sprite, I can hear you say, weren’t you eliminated from competition in that opening round?

I was. But Sock Madness is one of those events where prizes are awarded at the discretion, kindness, and amusement of its moderators and for a wide assortment of reasons. (Mine was for persevering with the competition through difficult personal times.)

I’m still a little disappointed that I couldn’t have knit more/faster while in Salt Lake, but the sweetness of the prize and the generosity of the moderators (and the pattern designer, who helped me come up with a solution to the boneheaded mistake I made while trying to knit through exhaustion and stress) takes the bitterness out of my failure. It’s a true consolation prize.