The weather here has been dismal. Huge thunderstorms ripping through every day, or twice or three times a day, dreadfully depressing for those of us who walk or ride our bikes everywhere. I feel like I’ve been trapped in the house by the misery that’s been the weather, and I’m falling behind on errands and shopping. The weather has been so crappy, that Rachel H and I remain entirely gobsmacked that the only nice day there has been was the Saturday we did the 1000 knitters shoot. The Toronto summer is so short that being deprived of any one warm and glorious day makes the natives restless, and missing out on a whole week of patios, sundresses and walking in the sun makes us downright irate. Lene wrote about it, and Ken called me yesterday to lodge a formal complaint about the weather. (Why he felt that I would be able to help him, I cannot say. I hate rain so much that if there were anything I could do about it, I certainly would have.) There are few upsides…but I’m trying to notice them. For starters, the whole city is green. Green, lush, hugely overgrown and everyone I talk to comments on the roses. The city is covered in them. Everyone’s rosebushes are putting on a show like we haven’t seen for years, and it’s breathtakingly beautiful…in between the thunderstorms that try to smash all the petals of them. The thunderstorms we’ve been having are oddly beautiful too… (If you can overlook the flooding here and there) very extreme and loud and so much water comes so fast that you can see people standing in doorways and on porches, just awestruck at the intensity. They are the kind of storms where I keep hearing people say “I haven’t seen a storm like this since….” and then they trail off, because the answer is “yesterday” or “earlier today”. Storms like this happen here, for sure, but to have so many of them so quickly in a row is fearsome and bizarre. The sun will be shining, everything will be beautiful, and so you get on your bike and go somewhere, and then a huge storm blows up out of nowhere, really nowhere, and whammo, you’re scrambling for cover from the lightning and the rain or a couple of times, crazy huge hail.

Then it blows off…and the sun comes out again, until two hours later when the glorious blue sky has lulled you into leaving again, only to drench you three blocks from home. (Mother nature has a sense of humour with all the sophistication of a three year old who’s gotten hold a garden hose.)

All of this adds up to some of the most beautiful skies I’ve ever seen. Swirling grey and black on blue, huge and defined white cumulous mountains and crazy yellowey-purple- greenish skies that invoke thoughts of bruises. Last night I was so awestruck that I went out with my camera.

These skies remind me of the overly dramatic skies in oil paintings… entirely unrealistic.

This morning the sun is shining and it’s an entirely beautiful day, but I’ve been tricked by this weather again and I’m not falling for it. If the planet thinks it can make me walk to the village so it can pelt me with hail again…its got another thing coming. I’m staying right here, though I am taking advantage of the lack of rain to take sock pictures.

These are the finished Phlox socks, June offering from the Robyn’s nest sock club.

The pattern’s written by Jennifer. (If you look on the left sidebar of her blog there, you can see a “Phlox sock” link. The patterns not available until October, but she’d be happy to take your email addie and let you know when you can get it.)

I love the wee buttons, though I did move their location. Jennifer had the split and the button at the front, and I moved them (because I have a some sort of compulsion to alter patterns) to above the outside ankle.

The yarn was a pleasure, a hand-dyed artisanal one from Biscotte and Cie. It’s a thin yarn, a loosely plied two-ply and not one that I would have chosen myself. This, I think, is the great and grand thing about sock clubs. You get what you get, and the colour of the yarn, or in this case, both the colour and the sort of yarn can take you right out of your comfort zone. I would never, ever, in a million years have chosen either this colour or the yarn, and truth be told, I only started knitting it because I have a friend that will adore it. That purple-blue is so intense that I would have admired the skein and left it there, but because it landed on my lap I gave it a whirl, and got a surprise. I love them.

When I was done the socks (Ladies medium) I was really shocked at how much yarn I had left, enough that I think I could even squeak another little pair (maybe without the cuff and a smaller foot) out of it….and that made me really happy…which made me really surprised. There’s a lot to be said for stepping out of your box.