Morning diamonds, car doctor at work, doubling down

 Great overnight rain, leaving diamonds everywhere

and a chipmunk scurried out from the cherry tomato patch when I was checking for ripe ones. He may get there before me.

Gary added me to his list yesterday when he heard my tale of car woe, and fixed the pressure on all the tires.

He'd already planned on doing a couple of cars, so put mine first. And reminded me that he would gladly drive me to the dentist if I needed him.  A prince.

And I played with the sock yarn for a while, reading labels and choosing some to make a pair for moi. Found one beautiful blue mix whose label indicated handwash, dry flat.

Clearly not one to donate, the chances of the recipient's being able to do that being pretty much nil. So it's for me.

Not a snag in the hank, wound up flawlessly. No hidden felting.

Turns out it was originally marketed as super wash, for non -knitters that means wool treated to survive machine washing. 

However, it's an alpaca mix and they found it felted and shrank after a few washes, so they relabeled it.  Evidently alpaca, which is very different from sheep's wool, didn't take the super wash processing successfully.

Bottom line: mine! Next issue is whether there's enough for a pair. One skein and one ball. There are various ways of determining how much yarn you have.

You can weigh it if you have a gram scale. I don't. You can unfurl it and measure the length, are you kidding? 

Or you can come up with something I've fancied trying for ages, to make sure you have matching length socks: knit both at once. No, not that ghastly magic thing, endlessly sliding back and forward on circular needles like a human piston rod. 

This is casting on two separate projects, starting toe up. The Boudian Method, pat. pend.

This way you can see how the length is going, and start the cuff in good time. It's better than knitting one lovely sock then running out before the other matches and having to sub. 

Not that the recipient is likely to roar with rage, she's lucky to be getting them, but all the same it would be nice to match. 

And the luxury of knitting a solid color after months of stripes designed to eke out inadequate amounts of beautiful yarn, is not to be sniffed at. It was fun but I fancy a change.

And raise a loud cheer for a historic podium, noted by a historic lady

This is almost certainly a downstream benefit from Title IX, the legislation that gave girls a fair deal in school and college sports, and resulted in a surge of terrific young athletes getting a chance. Largely in the teeth of male spite. 

One of my friends, before Title IX,  in high school a regional girls tennis champion, she and her doubles partner swept the board,  wanted to play on the college team. 

There was no girls team so she applied for the boys team.    The ptb at the college, abolished boys tennis rather than admit her or create a girls team. After Title IX, that would never fly.  

It's not just for the athletes. It's for all girls to see more and more evidence that they're part of society, not just the audience to male activity.

My soapbox is getting worn down. So here's an idea. I ran out of Kleenex, and subbed a toilet roll. It'll work. 

And if it looks a bit funny, what's it to you, feller? Oh sorry, my outrageometer suddenly ignited. It does that. I blame Twitter and Covid.

Yesterday there was a Textiles and Tea with Kathie Roig, double weaving.

Nice shading and color blending, painted warps.

One interesting question came up: if your loom could talk what would it say to you? Joanne already anticipated this with her yarn comment!

Happy day everyone, you're valued whatever you do, however you look, however you feel! 

Cheer on Ukraine, too, ready to strike back in a counteroffensive, yay.