Hello, April.

I’ve been studiously avoiding most of the Internet today. Mostly I just had a ton of work to do, and also a kid who’s off school for a week (the number of “no school” days in late March-mid April is kind of bonkers this year), but also, it’s…not a great day to be a painfully earnest person. I’m never going to find “haha, you believed me and you shouldn’t have!” to be funny, it’s just a violation of trust, and yes, I know, I’m no fun!

But I did take a wee break in the afternoon to go on a walk with the kiddo at exactly the time that we’ll be in the center of the path of totality for the solar eclipse in a week (I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS!!!), and after that, I took some photos so that I could update the blog. And as you can probably tell from the header image on this post…Winter Grid isn’t really working out. Alas.

Partly, it’s my own fault: I modified the bottom hem to be twisted rib instead of garter stitch, and clearly that’s not working because it’s flaring out like mad and because it’s knit sideways along with the body, there’s no way to fix it without ripping it out entirely.

But I’m not sure how much my own fault it is, because the garter hem on my Gridlines pullover also flares out a bit, though it’s less noticeable given the higher-drape fabric, and that’s the whole reason I decided to try something different on Winter Grid. Oh well, not all experiments work out!

I happened to be wearing another sideways-knit sweater today (Vita de Vie), which doesn’t have this problem of a flaring bottom hem…and I think the difference is that the bottom hem is picked up and knit down from the sweater body instead of being knit along with it. In any case, Winter Grid is getting ripped out, and I’m not sure if I’m for experimenting with leaving off the bottom hem and knitting it down from the body at the end, or if I want to just use the yarn for what I originally thought I was going to use it for (yet another Farmhouse Cardigan, because apparently having 3 of them just isn’t enough?)

Speaking of patterns I have knit many times, I do have one successful thing to report: I finished yet another pair of DRK Everyday Socks!

These are knit in Retrosaria Mondim yarn in a black speckle. The yarn was a delight to knit with, and feels great to wear, too. It doesn’t have any nylon in it, so I’m interested to see how well it holds up when worn as boot socks given the number of steps I get in a day when I’m teaching on campus! I tried a slightly different bind-off on these (one that I learned from Romi Hill’s Instagram) and I think I like it.

So hello, April. I don’t like the day you start with, but I do really like that in one week, I’ll get to experience a total solar eclipse with my community, and at the end of that week, I’ll have my 41st birthday!