Limping

There's no way I could keep up with Cara, of course, but at the rate I'm going, I'm not going to be Jaywalking anytime soon.

Here's my first sock--just about 5" long. I've got another 1 3/4" before the heel. I am making progress, mind you, but only about 6 rows a sitting.

I've been spending most of my knitting time working on my sweater. The right front is about halfway done--more, really--so I do feel like like I'm making progress on something. Just not on the socks.

Question: I've had one person ask me for the pattern for my KidSilk Haze neck warmer. Is that something anyone else would be interested in? Just taking stock....

Now, other than knitting, I'm reading "A Grand Idea" by Joel Achenbach, and enjoying it quite a bit. It tells the true story of George Washington's plan to make the Potomac (aka Patowmack) River a main, commercial artery to the Western part of the new United States. It's interesting in and of itself, but I'm enjoying the author's subtle sense of humor, which sneaks in from time to time. How many historians can work the word "squishy" into a serious work? ("Even so, they might have gotten away with it, for frontier law tended to be squishy.") I'm enjoying the main story, but I'm loving the little tongue-in-cheek asides.

• "Washington would no sooner loll out his tongue than wear breeches on his head."
• "...He also had a horseman's tent, and extra horshoes and canteens of water. He had fine sheets. He had silver cups and silver spoons. The general might be going into the remote fringe of western civilization, but he didn't intend to live like an animal."
• "Washington, like almost everyone in the late eighteenth century not named Benjamin Franklin, had little experience with new technologies."
• "Eventually he learned that he had been called to the presidency. The message came in a roundabout manner. Washington had previously written Secretary of War Henry Knowx with a request for some 'superfine American broadcloth' ... On February 16, 1789, Knox wrote to inform the general that the cloth had not yet arrived, adding casually that the general had, according to the latest election returns, been elected unanimously as the first president of the United States. It was one of those 'By the way, you're the president' letters."

And, in a not-funny, but wow kind of way, how about this: "The most remote Indian villages were transformed by trade long before the first whites settled in the western territories. If people couldn't drag their deerskins over the mountains, they would find some other way to sell them. Historian Eric Hinderaker reports that in 1783 a group of Delawares on the Upper Ohio wanted to sell a pile of animal skins and knew it would be too difficult to send them over the Appalachians. Instead, they canoed down the Ohio to the Mississippi, then down the Mississippi to New Orleans, then sailed through the Gulf of Mexico and around Florida, all the way to Philadelphia and sold their skins. Then they walked home, to the Ohio River. People find a way." I hope they found a good sale when they got there.

Oh, check out this blond joke I got off of MSNBC's "Clicked" page. It's funny!

And, one of my favorite non-knitting blogs is back up for the first time in months. Yay!

Comments

[Beth]

Still not Jaywalking. I usually such a joiner... Yours are turning out very pretty.

[Carole]

Nice Jaywalker. I'm working on Feather & Fan socks now, taking a break from the JWs and doing my other fall-back sock pattern.
I would be interested in the pattern for the neck warmer. How many balls of crack did you use for it?

[Gracie]

The colorway of the socks is beautiful!

Sounds like a really interesting book. Do you think it would have been faster for them to walk to Philly? Or, maybe they just wanted to take a vacay.

[JessaLu]

Squishy? Too funny!

I love the color of the Jaywalkers!

[minnie]

love the blond joke. i'll have to link it in my blog!

[Anne]

Sounds like a great book suggestion. The author sounds like he'd be great fun at a dinner party too - lots of witty tidbits to chat about!