This June, Hong Kong has experienced its heaviest rainfall in 125 years of recorded weather. Yesterday, the South China Morning Post reported that over 1245 mm had fallen in June (that is over 49 inches). I have a 4 and 5 year old home on school holidays. While I realise that there are people in much more trying circumstances, I have fallen prey to self pity from time to time this month.
The girls spent most of yesterday wandering around the flat with their umbrellas up, “pretending that it is not raining”. Because they have grown up in Asia, they think that a usual response to sunshine is to put up an umbrella. The fashion for parasols has not faded in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Even this game wore thin eventually, and I had to fall back on my last (guilty) resource to entertain small children, and put on a “High School Musical” DVD purchased for this kind of emergency. I was then able to make progress on the second sock of this pair. I apologise for the quality of the photos, but the socks are too big (they are for my husband), and he is not around to pose, having swanned off to Sydney for the week. I imagine that he would dispute the level of “swanning” going on in Sydney, and mutter something about “business trip” and “lots of meetings”, but it is not raining in Sydney!
Project Details
Pattern Primavera Socks (free Ravelry download) – inspired by my friend Yam, and Franklin.
Yarn Yarn Workshop Footscray (that’s my yarn!), hand dyed by me, using a very un-scientific kettle dye technique.
Needles Addi Turbos size 2.5 mm, also from the store.
Alterations Knitted “magic loop”, which required some deep thought when it came to turning the heel. While I found this pattern very pretty, I would not recommend it for beginner sock knitters. Sometimes the stitch counts were not specified, and I had to fudge it based on my experience of knitting other socks.
Tags: Hong Kong rain, kettle dyeing, Primavera socks, undyed sock yarn, Yarn Workshop Footscray
July 3, 2008 at 1:02 pm |
Oh, you made me laugh SO hard. I remember trying to explain to someone once how we were always wet from the knees down during monsoon season because the rain would splash so hard. I built quite a few little “gutter boats” with the kids to use between rain bouts. Thanks so much for the story.
July 16, 2008 at 6:56 am |
[...] Travellers Yarn travel, knitting, family, and experiments with knitting machines « “We are pretending that it is not raining” [...]
December 3, 2008 at 9:45 pm |
Love the color of those socks! Well, done.