I never thought I’d be a sock knitter, as I’ve mentioned here before. What’s the sense of putting so much effort into something that will quickly wear out and smell of feet? I’m still not sure. But I knit them anyway. And I’ll bet your store-bought socks can’t say they’ve ever landed you a new job.

Here’s how it happened:

Spring. Sockapaloooza. Knitters all over the world are whipping up pairs of socks for perfect strangers, out of a sense of good fun and on the strength of their faith that another stranger will send a pair to them. Steph knits these. She sends them to Jen in Portland. She also tells Jen that her friend Sarah has recently moved to Portland, and perhaps they should meet and knit together. Jen and Sarah meet and find they have much in common beyond knitting. Jen introduces Sarah to her boss, the director of an exceptionally fine elementary school, and now Sarah is so busy learning her new job there that she scarcely has time to cast on a mate for any of her own unwed socks.

Gainful employment through sock exchange, people. It’s a beautiful dream. Those daffodilly Rib-and-Cable socks are helping to pay my mortgage when you come right down to it. They’ve also introduced me to a whole crowd of bright, passionate, talented folks — many knitters among them — with whom it’s a joy to work, and I haven’t even met the kiddos yet.

So cast on, my friends. You never know when your craft will become a vessel and bear you away on a purposeful current to parts unknown.

It’s hot. Too hot. Here’s what it’s been like:

5:00 p.m. Weave in ends of Viennese shrug while watching replay of Tour de France coverage. Note irony of completing wool blend sweater on hottest day of year. Wish for team car with 72 bottles of water to drink and pour over head a la Floyd Landis.

6:00 p.m. Hungry. No desire to produce any extra heat in kitchen by cooking anything. Crave Thai food.

6:15 p.m. Fortuitously discover excellent Thai restaurant is only ten blocks away from new house. Huzzah! Praise creation of internet. Ten blocks is just at the limit of feasible walking distance through atmosphere of soup outside.

6:30 p.m. Commence eating delicious Thai food in blessedly air-conditioned environment. The world is a brighter place, and not just because the restaurant is painted the orange of life preservers, tiger lilies, and high school gym lockers.

6:50 p.m. Awesome neighbors, it turns out, had the same fabulous idea. Foolishly full of revived spirits, promise them blueberry muffins for the Tour showing tomorrow morning.

7:30 p.m. Return home, realize house is more ovenlike than ever. No chance of baking muffins tonight.

8:00 p.m. Fruitlessly (and, admittedly, listlessly) hunt for box containing Summer ’05 VK and Frost Flowers pullover pattern. Drink water. Find Spring ’06 IK instead.

8:30 p.m. Find size 3 Addi circ and Jaeger Siena. Cast on Prairie camisole, slacker freeform heavily modified version of Veronik Avery’s Prairie Tunic, while watching end of Last of the Mohicans on television. Still a bummer when Uncas gets eviscerated and Alice jumps off a cliff. This movie is such a downer. Daniel Day-Lewis sure is tasty in it, though.

9:00 p.m. Vanity Fair on next. Too hot to try to sleep yet, might as well check it out. Rip out beginning of Prairie Camisole, which has somehow ballooned so far beyond original gauge it could engirdle a small hippo.

11:30 p.m. Vanity Fair a total wash. Have failed to comprehend all but the most major plot points. Oh well, book was on reading list anyway. Prairie camisole is finally off to a promising start.

11:45 p.m. Cold shower. Don’t even bother toweling off. Drink extra glass of water.

12:50 a.m. Still awake.

1:17 a.m. Move to window seat in hopes of draft.

1:20 a.m. Realize stark nudity in front of window probably not good for reputation in new neighborhood if anyone should happen to look up here early in the morning. Move to floor near vent.

1:50 a.m. Concede that stark nudity on scratchy wool carpet is not that comfortable.

2:00 a.m. Fetch towel from bathroom. Step on cat, who is sprawled out asleep or comatose on bathroom tiles. Drink more water.

2:02 a.m. Arrange towel on floor by vent. Lie awake contemplating shaving poor cat.

2:05 a.m. No clippers in house. Would have to use Granny’s ancient German sewing scissors, which, though mostly indomitable, probably aren’t up to a whole cat’s worth of snipping.

2:07 a.m. Cat would be laughingstock of local feline posse anyway. Already took a drubbing from Big Bossy Felix of two doors down.

2:30-ish a.m. Fall briefly asleep.

4:00 a.m. Body temperature sufficiently reduced to get back on the bed. A little more sleep.

5:20 a.m. Too hot again. Might as well get up and make muffins.

6:40 a.m. Muffins out of oven. Don least heat-retaining clothing in wardrobe, walk to Bike Gallery.

8:00 a.m. Floyd seems to have assured himself the yellow jersey. Have spun a second spindle-full of wooly singles in Axel teal; ready for plying tomorrow. Muffins have been devoured by ravenous bikers.

8:15 a.m. Return home. Think about walking down to farmers’ market for fruit. Weigh desire for fresh cherries against desire not to move. Read blogs and drink water to postpone decision.

9:15 a.m. Walk to market. Commiserate with fellow shoppers about mugginess. Envy neighbor hitching up boat trailer and other neighbor heading to the mountains to bike and camp by lake.

9:35 a.m. Return home. Realize oven has been on this whole time. Whole kitchen already felt like 375 degrees anyway.

10:00 a.m. Start to organize knitting library. Spy cat draped on floor near vent a la Salvador Dali.

10:30 a.m. Join cat on floor. Read through Folk Knitting in Estonia. Drink water.

10:35 a.m. Note absurdity of planning to knit woolen mittens when it’s at least 85 degrees indoors. Wish Portland were in Estonia.

10:38 a.m. Check weather in Estonia. Highest temperature in entire country is 74 degrees.

11:00 a.m. Better skein up this morning’s spinning to be ready for plying.

11: 27 a.m. Brainwave! Could fill tub with cold water and knit Prairie camisole while wallowing! Genius! Will let you know how it goes.

Foolish of me to promise pictures when we’re in the middle of moving – of course we had to take the computer equipment down. But Mr. Garter set it up again in record time. So here’s what I’m spinning for the Tour de Fleece:

  

Pretty, no? This yummy merino roving is from handpaintedyarn.com, the good people whose creation of Malabrigo has already ensured them a place in the Heavenly Kingdom. I don’t think it’s carded quite as well as it could be – there are some gnarly little tiny rat’s nests that are hard to tease out, and some sections draft out beautifully while others want to snag or break apart. But I’m sure most of it is just my own inexperience, and over all I’m really enjoying it. I think I’m improving in terms of consistency, but I still hit frustrating sections where I can’t seem to spin evenly or the single keeps breaking. I’m pretty sure I’m still overspinning, but I don’t know how to solve this and also keep the yarn strong enough not to pull apart when I get to spindling a long length of it. How far down should I let the spindle dangle before I wind up the new yarn? I should probably find a class to take so I can figure out what the heck I ought to be doing, eh?

So far I’m 6 for 6 getting up to watch the Tour, although I did miss one day of spinning when I brought all the fiber over to the new place but ended up staying one more night with Mr. Garter’s parents. Don’t worry – I’ll spin on a rest day to make it up.

The 4th was our first in the new house. And it was quite a surprise. Our neighborhood looks pretty sleepy and demure, the kind of place where people spend more time gardening than hitting the bars, where children and chickens and cats hang out in the street and no one worries about them. But things get a little spicier for Independence Day: everyone was out in the road lighting off firecrackers, many of them quite a bit more impressive than you’re allowed to buy in Oregon. And our neighbor, a kind and placid-seeming mother of three, threw a raging party with big-league fireworks that shook our house until nearly midnight. Poor Mingus endured the explosions pretty bravely, but lost it when they broke out the screaming, crackling variety. The little guy thinks we’ve transferred him to the mouth of Hell. He likes the window seats, though.

Next up: I’ve got a finished Pomatomus sock to show you! And my mother’s finally coming to collect her birthday Conwys, so I’ve got to block and photograph them. I’ve been working and moving too hard these past few days to knit much, but I’m making progress on the Viennese Shrug. Only one sleeve to go.

Eep, we did it! We closed on the house! I signed my initials to countless pages of hoodoo legal jabber ensuring that I’ll wind up in debtor’s prison if I don’t bestow vast chunks of my net worth on the bank each month. My signature now appears above the words “Borrower #1” on a tome of documents thick enough to stun an ox. Mr. Garter’s “Borrower #2.” We are the borrowers, and we drifted through the rest of the afternoon in a bubble of ether heady enough to fend off the Dear-Lord, what-have-we-done panic, at least for the moment. We even managed to open five new bank accounts along the way. (Our new bank is adorable. They gave us t-shirts designed to welcome us to the city and to promote local pride. Mr. Garter’s is egg-yolk yellow and says “Portlander”. Mine is sky blue and says “PDXIST”, which sounds vaguely illicit in a pleasing sort of way.)

Most importantly, we caught the last ten minutes of the France v. Spain match at a bar near the title company’s office. I have a long-standing affection for Les Bleus, having been in France during their victorious ’98 World Cup ride, and having been educated about the players and their merits by a lot of enthusiastic little schoolboys. (I was nearly run over by the Team Austria bus while riding my bicycle near their training center, by the by.) So I was happy to see them go through to the quarterfinals, and delighted that Zizou made that beautiful final goal.

I’ve turned the heel and worked the gusset of Pomatomus, and I’m swooning over the perfection of this yarn and this pattern in company. Pictures tomorrow, if there’s time between taking Mr. Garter to the dentist and both of us to the chiropractor and back to the bank and over to help my aunt move some of her things… And if I can catch my breath after all that, I’ll relate to you a most marvelous Sockapaloooza story.