4th of July, and knitting on the circular sock machine

For those of you who live in the US, I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July celebration this past weekend! We had a lovely time here in Arizona. My family went to my folks' place for the afternoon and early evening, for brats and potato salad and jello and chips, with strawberry shortcake and icecream for dessert. They usually cook much more gourmet food, but for the 4th we went with classic picnic fare. Then we followed that up with a couple of hands of cards, killing time until it cooled off enough to go outside. When the sun went down, we headed on over to the ball park, and enjoyed live music and a great fireworks display. I love the 4th--it is one of the few times that the whole community comes together for a celebration.







For the rest of the weekend, I've been cranking on my Creelman Brothers circular sock knitting machine. I've got four new pairs of socks up in the Etsy shop already. Three more pairs are currently on the drying rack, waiting for their turn in front of the camera. I'm using Regia 'Galaxy' sock yarn for the most part. I really love the swirl patterns that it is giving me! I bought enough for 12 pairs of socks when it was on sale several weeks ago, hoping that it would work in my machine. It knits beautifully! And at 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon, it makes hard wearing and machine washable socks.





My goal for the week is to keep on cranking away. I'd like to fill out the sock section in the Etsy shop before I head out for my upcoming road trip to Ontario. This weekend I'll be putting the shop in vacation mode for the rest of July. It will open again at the end of July/beginning of August. Around here, that is just in time for Back to School buying, so I'd like to have a selection of socks ready for that. I'll tell you what though, it seems very strange to be making wool school socks when it is over 100F outside!