Eva’s Socks Are Done

I’ve finished Eva’s socks. I don’t have pictures, yet. I know I should, but somehow haven’t gotten around to it. I finished them Saturday afternoon, and they look pretty good…until they actually get worn much.

The problem is one I foresaw, but sort of ignored. They slouch. They don’t stay up adequately well. I know why this is (the spiral pattern of ribbing doesn’t provide the stretchiness that vertical ribbing does), but I’m still somewhat frustrated by it. I’m wondering if it’s too late to add some elastic (I rather suspect it is). Eva says she likes them as slouch socks, but I’m not as satisfied with them as I’d like to be. So it goes. There will be more socks moving forward.

In fact, I’ve just started another sock (this one for me). It’s the second sock of a pair I started back before I started Eva’s. It’s a very similar pattern, but with far more ribbing at the top, and less of the swirling pattern up the leg. We’ll see if that helps it stay up better.

This is the first time I’ve been disappointed with how a big project turned out. I’m not deeply upset by it, but I am aware of a number of things I would do differently if I were doing it over. I’m not going to rip back and re-do it…in large part because the socks took so long to do the first time, I can’t quite face spending that much more time with them again. Instead, I’m trying to focus on this as a learning experience. As disappointments go, this one is fairly minor. It’s something that if it mattered enough to me, I could fix (I think).

What this means, among other things, is that I am now done with one project, and down to 3 active projects on the needles. One of these (a bedspread) is my “in front of the TV” project, and getting some attention. Another, a shawl, is largely languishing at the moment, but I’ll come back to it. Regardless of how I feel about how the socks came out, it feels really good to have finished something. Eva’s socks are the first project I’ve finished since January, which, for me, is a really long time. Just finishing them is an accomplishment, and I’m feeling good about moving forward again.

Scaling Back Aspirations

It happens to all of us as we get older. We look at our goals, and recognize that we simply won’t achieve everything we were hoping to in life. For instance, I have just concluded that my garden this year is going to be somewhat symbolic.

The perennials will probably do okay: I think the raspberries will actually produce quite well, and perhaps the grape vines as well. I have hopes that some of the newly planted perennials will survive (artichoke and rhubarb). But I don’t think the peas I planted this spring are likely to make it, and there is an even largely grouping of things that got seeded, but I suspect won’t make it into the ground, or died before they made it into the ground.

I planted about a dozen sunflowers. I think that 2 are still growing (not very well). The purple pole beans were doing okay, until the plants just weren’t there. I think the squirrels got them.

Basil which I started from seed hasn’t died yet, and I think I will try to get some into the ground (or else Eva will be mightily displeased), but I don’t think it will do particularly well.

Fundamentally, I don’t have time to take care of a garden this summer. And I think I just have to accept that. Gardens require me to be around not only to plant, but to weed and water. And I’m just not around that regularly. So with great regret, I am more or less giving up on the garden. I’ll do a little playing around. I’ll try to keep the yard from becoming completely overgrown. But I am not going to try to produce much in the way of veggies, because I suspect I will fail in the attempt.