In Which the Pirate Tours Yarn Stores.

I did not go to Rhinebeck this past weekend, and it’s probably just as well. I heard that it was cold and rainy. Perhaps next year!

Instead, I spent the weekend in Boston with a couple of friends who indulged my strange hobby and waited patiently while I visited Newbury Yarns and Windsor Button, petted all the yarns, and purchased nothing. There were a couple of sock yarns at Windsor Button that almost came home with me, but in the end I decided that nothing really had to.

I did get to work on my handspun sock for a while in the airport. A woman across from me at the gate watched curiously for a minute or two, then asked, “Excuse me, but… what is that called, that you’re doing?”

“Knitting,” I said. “I am knitting a sock, even if it doesn’t look like much yet. This will be the toe.” I showed her the barest beginnings of sock.

She nodded. “Nih-ting,” she said, trying the word on for size as if she’d never encountered it before. “Nih-ting. You don’t see too many people doing that anymore!”

“No,” I agreed, and went back to it.