Knitting Update, May

 My Destination Unknown socks are finished! Like all of verybusymonkey's designs, it seems like the knitting just flew along.  While the yarn I used (Knit Picks Hawthorne in Mississippi) might not have been the best colorway choice for this complex pattern, it just seemed to fit the theme of "I don't know where I'm going or what's going to happen". Which is sort of the state of mind I was in when I began them in March.

Despite the yarn sometimes making the pattern hard to see,  I'm very happy with them.  Will most likely knit this pattern again in the future with a solid color yarn.

On the theme of "I don't know where I'm going or what's going to happen". . .  

What's next on the needles?  

I'm not sure. 

There are several projects on my To Knit list that I made up at the beginning of 2022.  But, unexpectedly, I need to knit a Christmas stocking to match these that I made last year:

DD1 and Honorary Son are expecting again!  Faline will become a big sister right around her second birthday.  So, it has been requested that Grandbaby #5 has a stocking ready to use for his/her first Christmas.

I'm in a bit of a quandary on how to go about knitting this up, with this new grandchild's name, and have it done on time.  If DD1 and Honorary Son find out the sex and have a name chosen for sure in advance of the birth, say by the beginning of October, I will have no problem getting the stocking done by the end of November.  If it's going to take them as long to settle on a name for this new one as it did for Faline, I should probably rework the pattern to start from the toe and work upwards, doing the name and cuff last.

In which case I should probably start this month, before I get crazy busy with the garden and canning (and hopefully going to couple horse shows) (and picking fabrics for a new baby quilt!!) this summer.  Summer has so much going on that I don't get a whole lot of knitting time.

Plus, toe-up is not my preferred way to knit socks (or stockings!)  I can do it; I have done it, but I struggle with the toe part when it comes first.  Especially getting it going in the Turkish cast on.  My fingers and needles and yarn get so jumbled up, and finding the right tension isn't natural to me when I start that way.

While I ruminate on that idea for a few days, I will probably grab some socks that need darning and get those mended so they can go back into the dresser for wearing.

Reading:

Since April's knitting update, I finished reading The Secret Life of Anna Blanc by Jennifer Kincheloe, which was an entertaining fun read.

Then I read Gated Prey by Lee Goldberg. This is the newest Eve Ronin mystery and is just as fast paced as the previous ones in this series.  I'm hooked!  I just found out there's a fourth one due to be published in June; that's definitely going on my To Read list.

Next up was Dead Wrong by Vannetta Chapman.  This is the first of her Agatha's Amish B&B series.  While I have enjoyed her other three Amish mystery series, this one sort of fell flat to me.  Even so, I will probably read the other two books in this series at some point.

My current read is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  This one's been on and off my radar for a few years and I finally decided to request it from the library.  I'm about two chapters in so far.  Not enough to know if I'll like it, love it, or perhaps not even finish it (which I give myself permission to do if it's just not striking me as what I want to read at the time.)

What's currently on--or freshly off--your needles this month?  What books have you enjoyed reading?