Enchanting Juno

I like it like that.

So this weekend was a knitting weekend.

Saturday I went with my friend J. to the yarn store.  J has been knitting scarves for the last few months and we decided that she was ready for something else.  Also, I had to look at the Rowan wool-cotton colors in person.  It was a matter of some urgency.

She went home with some Noro Big Kureyon - because friends don't let friends go home with out yarn that makes them that happy - some Addi Turbos and Ann Budd's sweater pattern book.  And I made her swatch.  And measure.  And plan.  Which earned me the name Knitting Nazi for not just letting her jump right in. 

"Dude," I told her, "you can do what you want...as long as you're prepared to rip and reknit because you were too impatient to lay the foundation.   No bitching."  I'm  mean that way.

Then I taught her to purl. 

We watched Gladiator while this was going on and all I could think is that modern TV isn't all that far from the Colosseum.  Are we doomed?

In between the movie and realizing that maybe I should have explained about bringing the yarn to the front in order to purl in rib, I worked on the final rows of the back of Lucy - I spoke poorly last week, the sweater isn't nearly done, just the back, and it is about to be temporarily abandoned for a couple new things because I am fickle, people, fickle, I tell you.

So enjoy the progress while I'm showing it, that's what I'm  saying.

Pretty, yes?  I'm a little worried about the armscyes.  But I need more sweater before I can really tell.   I'm going to roll with it.  If I gots to reknit, I gots to reknit. 

Casting on is instant gratification.  Knitting is the long haul.

Yesterday I drove to Loop in Philly (great store) with the Knit Goddess and D from my knitting group and met up with the Village Knittiot for a class with Annie Modesitt - she was teaching the funky circularly knit shrug that was on the cover of Vogue a few months ago.  It was a terrific class - Annie's a very good teacher, the pattern is fascinating and I learned a lot.  What could be better than a day spent learning about knitting, talking about knitting, meeting knitters and knitting? 

Naturally I bought yarn.  Big Kureyon, because the previous day's exposure made me WEAK.    And some Cash Iroha for contrast.  I love Cash Iroha.

Noro is tricky.

Example one is a sample started on slightly too big needles (and by too big, I mean the recommended size, Noro so totally overestimated these things) and right from the end of the ball.

Pretty ugly.  No, staggeringly ugly.  Disheartening.

Now, image a period of time in which there was  worrying about having wasted my money and also about maybe having no talent as a knitter whatsoever.

Second attempt, down 2 needle sizes, selecting an interesting point on the Noro color spectrum and also carrying along a bit of the Cash Iroha for color in the cast on.  Much better.

I'm calling it the dubious-but-hopeful shrug.  In that it's a gorgeous sweater, but I am dubious about being able to wear it.  But hopeful enough to try.

Small miracles.

My apologies to you, my darlings, for my very, very absent self.  It has been A Week in Which I Do Not Cope with many things.

I hope I am snapping out of it and can and will rejoin you soon.  And oh! such treasures as I have for you.  A workshop!  A dating story dating back to December! A rant political!  Carpet beetles!

Last night I sat in front of the Daily Show knitting away on the back of the beautiful but interminable Lucy in The Sky cardigan.  As is my recent wont, I moaned to myself, "Why, why, oh why does it never get any bigger?  Why, why, why does it never end?"  And then I looked down and realized that the ball of yarn was done, that I was attempting to knit the last cable row in the repeat for the second time...and that I only had four rows to go before it was finished.

I was actually a bit bewildered.  Probably by having my whine cut out from under me. 

Of course, I only knit 1/2 of one of those four rows.  I didn't want the abrupt ending to be too big a shock to the system.

Back in the saddle again.

Hi.

A moment of silence for the deceased Linksys-g.    I haven't yet decided whether I should bury it  in the backyard, or just go for a quick service over the garbage can, but hey, the king is dead, long live the king, and we've moved on to the new Linksys-g.

As you may have heard there was a little fiber gathering last weekend and I was a bad, bad, bad blogger and never took my camera out of the bag.  But it went like this - drive to Boston, drink a lot of wine and giggle like a fool until four in the morning,  hang out in my bathrobe and fondle fiber and visit with friends, drive to Maine, hang out with friends old and new, drink more wine, stay up til 2, buy fiber, spin,  hang out with friends old and new, laugh like a fool, rinse, repeat, etc.  Your basic fiberholic's paradise.

Driving home Monday I stopped in Connecticut for fluid intake/output and when I got out of the car, the car next to me began to back out.  I was so tired I didn't realize the other car was operational and I thought I was moving.  And started to lose my balance.  Very good, yes?

But life is short - being idiotically tired is a small price to pay.  I'm a lucky woman.

The first thing I did when the sales room opened was to hit the Indigo Moon booth.  I may have stepped over a tiny older woman in my haste to get there.  Um, she was walking really slow and I was just trying to get around her...yeah, yeah, that was it.  Not my finest moment.

But I tried to make up for it by making everyone I came into contact with buy this utterly ravishing merino top from...from....I can't remember.  But to make someone buy it is an act of good karma.  So perhaps my scales are balanced.

The Indigo Moon alpaca/silk/merino fiber is the dreamiest.  And my spinning seems to have made a quantum leap.  Either that or I was just sucking the spinning mojo from the other, better, spinners near me.  Like a vampire.  Or parasite.  I think it was probably the fiber though.  Really good prep. 

I actually didn't buy that much - I was having too much fun with the people to spend that much time in the sales room..  Though I did spend some quality time talking to Dave at the Merlin Tree about my new wheel...which isn't ready yet, but is going to be fabulous.  After spinning on Carole's new Reeves and Cate's new Amos wheels I am 12 times more excited than I was before for the Canadian Production Wheel, and really, I didn't think that was possible.

I have started to make some progress on Lucy the Tweedy Orange Aran Cardigan - I'm past the arm shaping on the back.  There was a brief intermission when i realized that I'd forgotten to modify the shaping for the change in gauge and ended up with armscyes that would not, as someone pointed out, fit a five year old.  In the tragedy of ripping the needle was mysteriously lost and then accidentally flung into the back of the van, but all has been recovered.  I hesitate to state any form of optimism because of the risk of tempting fate, but infer what you like.

Based on the way she won't leave my side and generally keeps purring and batting her eyes and cuddling, I think Miss Moxie has forgiven me for the horror of the boarding kennel.  I'd show you, but she's sleeping on the camera right now. 
Wait, I got it out.

As you can see, she's blocking the knitting in her quest for love. 

Sunday. That's my fun day.

I was sitting on the couch tonight thinking I was feeling kind of fat.  Now, there were quite a few chocolate biscotti in my weekend, thanks to the lovely and talented commenter S. Kate, who joined me and Ms. TMW for dinner, but not enough to account for this exact feeling of ickiness.

So I looked at the calendar and sure nuff, today was the 23rd day of my cycle.  And I'm what turns out to be 6 pounds heavier than I was yesterday. 

The uncontrollable munchies I had all day are now explained.

The human body is weird. 

Where does it come from, that's what I don't get.  I've had days where I woke up feeling good, and midway through the morning my pants suddenly got too small.  It's like I absorb water from the air for the sole purpose of retaining it.

So peculiar.

I know that this too shall pass, but I swear, I just had my period five minutes ago.  28-30 days goes a lot faster than it used to.  Of course, so did 2005.

After dinner last night we hung out and looked at the fiber and the knitting and the spindles and the wheel and...you know how we get when we meet new fiber people.  It was good.

Moxie turns out to be a happy fiber cat.   See S. Kate's show-and-tell in the background.

Then TMW and I  - I love how we are all becoming re-formed by our nom de blog - spent most of Sunday knitting in our jammies and playing with the cat.  I have trouble believing I've known her less than a year because at this point we pretty much finish each others sentences.  What's better than sitting around knitting in good company in your jams?

Not to make you feel bad or anything.

My knitting is wildly erratic.  I'm slowly coming to understand that any knitting that is tight - the sock (which is no more - when I got to the arch, it was no longer big enough around and has been ripped back for another attempt), textured patterns or similar, is going to go slowly, that since the surgery last April my right hand just isn't as strong and so I get distracted every few rows when it starts to ache.  My solution - have 6 things going at once, or knit lace, which doesn't hurt.

Last week I resurrected the Lucy in the Sky Scottish Tweed Cardigan.  It took me a few painstaking rows before my hands remembered how the pattern went, but now it's moving.  I absolutely love this yarn and this pattern.

But it hurts a bit, so tonight I sort of accidentally cast on for a blue koigu smoke ring that I'm sort of making up as I go along from a lace pattern in Omas Strickenheimnisse.

I'm going to alternate.

Who's a pretty girl?

Priorities, priorities.

I'm sitting at my desk, obviously I am not working because I am talking to you fine people, but all I really want to do is sneak into my bag, pull out the thing I have in there and work on it.  Focus, Juno, focus.  Hitch that flagging attention back to the stack of invoices on your desk. 

The back of Lucy is now officially too big to carry around, but it looks great and you can't see it because I was too lazy to take a picture last night, plus I don't want to show it off until  the piece is done and I have measured it against my body pattern to make sure I have not made a terrible mistake.  Oh, I never told you about the class, did I? 

Short answer.  Amazingly informative.  And why the hell isn't this kind of thing more commonly taught?  Five minutes into the class, I could already see why every sweater I've made has not fit me.

I'll show you a picture when I measure the sweater back against the pattern, but basically - I am very tall, busty and curvier than modern standards allow.  The discovery of the day?  That my back is proportionately quite narrow.   So when I measure around my bust and select a size from that, even when I add shaping to the front, everything bags under my arms and across the back and, as an additional bonus, makes me suicidal with despair.

So the Knit Goddess helped me draft a pattern in two versions:  one based on the width of my back, one based on the width of my front (including breasts.)  There is almost a three inch difference.  Bear in mind that these are 1/2 torso drawings, so the differential is nearly 6 inches between front and back. 

That's a lot.  Lightbulb. 

No wonder I have a closet full of skirts and trousers, but only a few shirts that ever really work.

I'm going to have to work the thing out a little bit by zen, kind of splitting the difference between  shaping, stretch and sizing, but she helped me measure the difference and draft a set in sleeve that will fit the different front and back and showed us how to redraft sleeve caps for different styles.

I know this sleeve information is out there is some excellent forms, but I get a bit over whelmed by it in purely written terms - having someone walk me through it was amazing.

She had us do all our measurements in centimeters as well, both for the sake of accuracy and to take us away from emotional feelings about inches.  She is not an American and finds that we are so measurement and size driven here that when she shows American women how to properly measure themselves in inches, the resulting depression can take a while to move past.  And she was right.  Centimeters don't 'feel' for me the way inches do, and so I was able not to look at my size, but at my body.  Maybe for the first time.

What else was amazing?  The other three women in the class are all similarly sized, but with very different body types.  It was really fascinating for us all to see how one piece of clothing fit each of them differently, to separate that from ideas about what size they were.   The whole thing was oddly liberating, although by the end of the class none of us were taking in new information any more.  We were full.

All of this comes back to the fact that I am afraid now that since I started Lucy on the old plan, the back will be 4 or so inches too wide. But I can't really tell on the needles and I am torn between continuing on and hoping for the best - it sort of looks OK - or taking it off the needles and discovering that I have to redo the whole thing, which I can't handle right now.  Sometimes knowledge is too scary.

Solution?

Cast on for the siren tempting me from my purse right now (remember?  first paragraph).

I fell hopelessly in love with Cassie's Highland Triangle Shawl over Maryland weekend and last night began it with three different yarns before settling finally settling on the nutmeg/pink/lavender Kitchen Sink yarn I bought at Rhinebeck last fall.  I found it insufficiently elastic to work with when I thought about making a cabled sweater out of it - first plan - but as lace, it is gorgeous. 

This is a blend of Corriedale, Merino, Blueface Leicester, Mohair, Silk and Angora.  One brown ply, one pink/lavender ply, nice halo. I can't remember who made it, but she raised and (I believe) dyed the fiber and had it mill spun, and she made really nice soap too.

Loot, Illustrated.

And finally, the goods. 

All piled up, it doesn't seem like that much.  My closet doors are still intact, although if I don't finish something soon, I may have to violate the First Principle of my stash agreement (with myself), which is that it must be containable to this one closet.

Of course, when I was tidying up for a friend's visit a week ago, I realized that knitting is everywhere - to whit:

• The ball winder and swift live semi-permanently in the kitchen, at least until I can nerve myself for a trip to IKEA for replacement legs for my work table (I broke one during the autumn home improvement frenzy - you try wrestling a very heavy butcher block table down two flights of stairs with only one good hand and see what you break).  Also in the kitchen - a silver bowl filled with the yarn from the deconstructed Rhinebeck Red sweater and a hanger holding 6 misc. hanks of Koigu, once intended for a shawl.
• The completed sleeve for The Redhead lives on the back of one of my living room chairs, behind which is also the bag of blue Phildar Pure Laine that I would like to sell.  My giant poncho lives mostly on the back of a ladder back chair and my crochet shawls live decoratively on the back of an armchair that matches the one holding The Redhead.  A side table holds the stack of books I have listed for sale.
• At any given moment, the most recent yarn acquisitions may be on the couch awaiting documentation - or awaiting delivery to storage.
• Until yesterday there was yarn on my bedside table, purely for aesthetic reasons.
• The chaise in my TV/computer/knit room is pretty much where the blocking board lives, along with the 70% completed Truffle Darling.  Ivanna Knit stands nearby.
• The coffee table usually has a variety of needles, skeins, patterns etc on it.  Today is no exception.
• There is a cabinet on the wall with special yarn in it - fine things, precious things - upon which lives a hand painted Italian ceramic jug of vintage needles and beneath which is a small table holding jugs containing straight needles, crochet hooks, DPNs - in other words, an assemblage of goods that looks remarkably like an alter.
• Next to the couch - where an ordinary person might have a table - I have bags and baskets holding WsIP, working yarn for the WsIP, assorted knitting bags, etc.
• Finally, Lucy In The Sky and the new one are resting on the arm of the couch, patterns on a clipboard propped against a pillow on the other side.

So I guess that First Principle is a guideline more than an actual conviction. 

Where was I?

Nordic Knitting is - and these are magic words, not dissimilar to "discontinued yarn" - Out of Print.  I am addicted to books on costume history and this has some amazing pictures of historic clothing samples.  One of the nice things about knitting history is that the examples tend to be from a folk tradition, rather than an aristocratic or formal tradition.  It makes sense that most of what survives was for "best" and thus not worn that much, or a possession of the wealthy who could afford to store things, replace things, buy things for pleasure rather than necessity.  But this leaves a gap when it comes to seeing what actual people wore everyday.  Since knitting is mostly more utilitarian, historic examples give us a little picture of something less often seen.  Cassie spotted this one, but she didn't have to push that hard. 

4 skeins of a really beautiful, tightly spun sport weight-ish wool, dyed with Red Madder and Cochineal, from Snow Star Farms of NH.  Intended to be a Highland Triangle shawl (Folk Shawls), unless I decide that the Kitchen Sink yarn from Rhinebeck would be better.  Heck, maybe I'll make two.  You can never have too many country shawls, right?

3 skeins of a wool/hemp/mohair sport weight from Dzined Yarns.  425 yards each.  I am obsessed with how this feels - the hemp is a fantastically tactile addition and the colors are so beautiful they caused me to abandon my prejudice against multicolor yarns (a preference that is, like the first principle, rather flexible).  This is, again, intended for some kind of shawl.

There's a theme here.  I think I am starting to understand sweater fit issues better, but I am working very slowly through the sweaters in progress to make sure I get it right.  And I want some satisfaction sooner.  Plus, shawls are so cozy and a way to add color while still keeping your clothing streamlined and since I've started thinking about them, I've realized how often my arms and shoulders are chilly...and, oh, hell, I just like 'em.

Another view of the Hunt Valley cashmere boucle.  There are no words.

This shawl - a less utilitarian garment I cannot imagine - light! airy! inelastic yarn! prone to snagging! But I don't care.   Very satisfying - I'm up to round 36.  I am quite sure I screwed up one round about row 25, but was unable to figure it out, so just counted my stitches and moved on.  I can't tell anything about the yarnovers and expect I won't until it is blocked. 

There were a few pairs of ebony circs, and a really pretty circular pin modeled after the floor plan of a ruined ancient hill fortification from a vendor called Tuatha.  I can't get a good close up of it, but you can see it in the top picture a little bit. 

Last - well, first actually - a little 100 yard skein of silver mohair from an Icelandic sheep farm.   Now, I can't stand mohair most of the time.  It is OK in a blend, particularly if it is kid mohair, but the grown up goat stuff?  No way.   

But I bought this little thing anyway because it just glowed.  I'll make a little narrow scarf and wear it outside my clothing or something.  Shut up.

Oops.  I forgot the Thing.

   

Butter soft suede and wet felted panels that look like a 3-D watercolor.  Could you have left it behind?  I didn't think so.

I asked if this wasn't too hippy for me - at which point my birkinstocked feet, my long cotton skirt, embroided cotton shirt and large fringed leather bag were pointed out to me and I decided that it was a stupid question anyway.

I think - really - that maybe I'm going to not buy any more stuff until Rhinebeck this fall. 

Stop laughing.

Monday, monday.

I woke up this morning suddenly and with no idea what time it was, what place it was.  This is unusual: even if (OK, when) I oversleep, I almost always wake knowing I'm out of step with time and about how far. This morning the light was so clear and pure I couldn't tell the angle of it, and the air was the perfect temperature and moved through the open window like a friendly spirit, tapping against the walls, and walking across my face with a curious touch.

When I opened my eyes, I was lying on my right side, with my right arm folded, my hand cradled against my cheek and the covers kicked to the floor.   The first  thing I saw was the sky blue of my t-shirt stretched across my elbow....before I realized that while my right arm was respectably clad, sometime in the night I had slipped my left arm free of the shirt,which was pulled diagonally across me to allow that arm liberty.

What's up with that?  What dream destination demanded that one free arm?  Where did I go in my sleep?  What adventures did I have?  I wish I knew.

There are few pleasures greater than remaining curled, newly awake, in the sunlight of a temperate morning, enjoying the touch and warmth of the air in place of the blankets, and yet not feeling cold...or urgent, or anything but newly alive. 

I had pastry adventures this weekend, and saw a movie, and saw rarely seen friends.

A knitting friend is coming over before group tonight and I thought I'd make an onion tart and salad.  So yesterday I caramelized onions and made a tart shell.  And another tart shell.  I haven't been cooking much recently, and reentering the cooking zone was like groping my way around a familiar room in the dark. 

The first one, I forgot that the rich crust bakes like a shrinky-dink and cut it too close to the edge of the pan.  I ended up with a very nice flaky Frisbee.  So I made another one, except I ran out of all-purpose flour.  And when I grabbed another bag from the freezer, it turns out to have been bread flour.  So this one I carefully left a bit draped over the edge of the dish to allow for shrinkage and that worked OK, but it is puffed and warped in unlikely ways, despite the best efforts of the pie weights.

It is fine, though, if ugly.   Very satisfying to do.  This seems to be a case where process was it's own reward.  But now I do need to figure out something for dinner that can be prepped in 40 minutes.

Up to about 7 inches - goes slowly right now, but getting better.  The thing that freaks me out abut this is that when I started Mariah - what, 2 months ago?  I was so overwhelmed by the chart and symbols that the springs practically came out of my head.  And that was just one chart.

This is two different cable patterns and two different twisted rib stitches, arranged in a palindromic sequence ... 10 stitches, 30 something, 9, 19, 10, 19, 9, 30 something, 10.  And yes, I did make a swatch so I could learn the two charts, but still...from the moment I started the main body, I have not had to look at the chart except occasionally to orient myself in the diamond pattern.

It is freaking me out a little, because it feels like I already know how to do something I don't know how to do.

The movie was HOME, an independent film, and the friends were lovely and I will tell you more when I have more time. 

Harlot-mania

I had a whole thing written and then the computer locked up.  Something about needing to expand the memory cache to accommodate the pictures I was uploading, then ......nothing.

So beginning again.

Does anyone else remember the ads for the Broadway show Beatle-mania, which ran in the 70s?  It is a particularly vivid memory and probably a sign that I watched too much television.  But last night reminds me of my memory of those ads: something about the dazed & gushing attendees.  Then add the bemused star, and the nice ladies from L&T who really looked they could not quite believe this was all for knitting. 

When we were waiting in line, one of the minions tried to tell me that the room would be crowded and encouraged me to check my bag.  I looked at her like she was insane and said "but there is knitting in there."  She looked down the line of people, most clutching various totes and parcels that looked like they might also contain knitting, and apparently decided that we were all crazy and it wasn't worth arguing about (you could absolutely watch the progression of thoughts on her face) and went back to whatever else she needed to do.

There was plenty of room, although I think the pretty waiters had some trouble negotiating the landscape of bags - keep 'em limber, that's what I say.

Cassie and I hesitated for perhaps 11 seconds on whether to seize chairs at the front table (of course.  really) and were joined by Cara and Jen.  And a nice woman called Linda reading Jack Finny and another one called Tree whom we encouraged to start a blog.   The lights were terribly, terribly hot, but within 3 seconds of sitting down there was yarn everywhere, and then cameras and then wine.

You like Cassie's shawl?

Stephanie was lovely - you will be unsurprised to hear that we laughed until breathing seemed optional.  Her voice is deeper than I expected, and very flexible, and she has an expressive face and an extraordinary sense of vocal timing - she's a story teller.  But we knew that already.  She's the fastest knitter I've ever seen.  She knows where Philadelphia is now. She didn't get to go to any yarn shops yesterday. (The room gasped in horror.  Just like a Victorian heroine.) I wish I could say more than that, but anything I've come up with seems facile and stupid. 

I was amazed by how comparatively few bloggers there were, although the non-bloggers seemed amazed by how many bloggers there were.  Or that such a thing as blogging existed.  But everyone was knitting, socks and sleeves and scarves and sweaters and 100 different styles of knitting, new knitters (I met one young woman who'd only learned 3 weeks previously) and, well, I'm not going to say old, cause y'all will hurt me - I'll go with experienced.

I kept looking around expecting to see someone I knew, it felt so familiar.  But it was just knitters.  Eventually, I met Cari and Em and Valentina, and another Cassie and Mindy and Melissa and Irene and Sarah and Jackie.  And saw Kay again.

Lion Brand and the Craft Yarn Council and L&T were very, very good to us.  Lion Brand, of course, doesn't hurt themselves by participating, but it is a nice gesture and by making it about the Dulaan project, I think they do themselves honor. 

If everyone in that room made a hat or two out of their big ass ball of Wool-ease, that would be what, 200 hats?  300?  400? more for Ryan.  Go look at her post from yesterday and get cracking.  That goes for me too.

After seeing that crowd, I believe there are 53 million knitting and crocheting woman out there (no one seems to have numbers on men - anything from 3 to millions, I expect)  and I have this sudden weird sense that none of us are alone.  We might be solitary by nature, or we might be at a knitting group 4 nights a week - personal choice - but if we need them, these other people are out there with their needles and their wit and humor and love.  We can look out for each other, cutting across lines of age and style and opinion and whatever to strengthen humanity.  That might seem like a lot to ask of a hobby (or craft) - but look at Dulaan, look at Knitters without Borders, look at the Afghan-along.  I think knitting has what it takes.  Knitters have what it takes. 

I'm so tired today that the only reason I made it to work was that I had to move my car to avoid a ticket and once I was in it, it seemed easier to park at work than find a spot in my neighborhood, so I know I'm forgetting things.   Be very impressed that I managed all the links.

It is a sign of my tiredness that I completely forgot to say that everyone was lovely.  Nice.  Funny.  Welcoming.  There was a certain  amount of fabulousness.  For the first time ever in the history of a largish group of people going out for tapas and drinks, there was too much money on the table at the end, rather than not enough.  I told you knitters have what it takes.

And we need some kind of social usage plan - when you meet someone you've emailed with for several months - do you shake hands?  Hug?  Make out? 

What else?  Oh, right - knitting.   Yes, Julia, I started with the back..

And perhaps tomorrow some further thought on anonymity - or as someone put it, "lying."

Never say never.

Last night I said something I never, ever expected to hear from my own lips. 

"Is there any more of this tofu?"

It was insanely good.  Coconut rice, ginger sauced tofu, some kind of Asian/fusion zucchini with bamboo and scallions.  I had thirds.  It is up there with the chicken from Blue Ribbon (which I ate mostly with my eyes closed and ecstasy in my heart) and the pork loin my friend D. made last summer, with the tomatillo and apple salsa (a moment of silence for the perfect balance of spice and flavor and texture, please).

Previously the only tofu I liked came in a kale salad from a local organic market.  Which is a unique product in that I don't like kale either, but this stuff is brilliant.

Maybe I need to learn more vegetarian cooking.  I like meat, but I do not require it all the time, and it seems like it would be a good thing to explore.  Now that I can chop again.

Notice how I buried the lede, here. 

Yes, I have two hands again, I have permission to do whatever I want as long as I stop or ease up if it hurts.  I can knit myself unconscious, lift weights, hold a pen, control a knife, pick up the cat, carry the laundry upstairs.  The vistas are unfolding, a trackless future awaits.

What I did last night - after the Miraculous Tofu - was sit in silence and put together the first two rows of the main section of the back of Lucy.  It took me a while to sort out all the different bits - there are two different ribbings, and cables from two different charts in various permutations and combinations. 

Thank you for your support.  And if anyone knows a good, interesting vegetarian cookbook, I'm open to suggestions.

Because, you know, I can chop stuff again.

Notice how it works out that the only logical choice is to start a new project?

I've been cautiously expanding the amount of knitting I'm doing - very, very modestly.  Some things work, some don't yet.  These are my conclusions about what I will be working on.

• The short row experiment was on Truffle Darling, but I need to wait on it for these reasons:
  • Needles (6.5 mm) are too big for me to comfortably use right now, particularly with the brace. 
  • The brace is fastened with Velcro which mixes very poorly with the Silkroad. 
  • My gauge in this fat yarn is all over the place while my hand is strapped up like something in a science fiction movie. 
  • Plus now that I have read Lavold's Viking Pattern book I want to rip it all out and redo the increases/decreases better using the technique she describes there - I hate the way they presently look. 
  • And I think that now that I've put in the short rows, I actually should have chosen a smaller bust size to work from initially.
  • So if I want a good result, I'm going to have to wait...and probably redo the whole thing.  (It is OK, I like process.  No tears, Internet)
• Nameless red sweater has enough switching from knit to purl that it might be OK for my hand, but the Bingo and the Velcro - not a good thing either. 
• Ditto Sweater a l'Orange (see last August) with the Velcro and 6.5 mm needles - Bergamo is the snaggiest yarn in the history of the world to begin with.
• Blizzard Shawl?  Can't rotate my wrist to crochet. Yet.
• Baby G's sweater - all garter just as bad as all stockinette in terms of repetitive motion and even tension issues.
• The Redhead - I could probably do the ribbing, but once I got into the body, ditto.

So I need something that uses a nice springy wool which will be gentle to my hand and likely to hide tension errors, a pattern with a lot of varied detail to keep my hand from staying fixed in one position (and hide tension errors), on needles that are 3.5 mm to about 4.5 mm, that won't be irretrievably ruined if it catches on something rough.

Something that I've maybe been swatching with, and keep coming back to because it doesn't hurt to knit with it.

Something that is maybe slubby and colorful...perhaps a tweed?  You see where I am going with this, right?

Did you see it?  Huh? Innit pretty?  (I have never loved a yarn the way I love this yarn.  So much so that I am going to rewrite the pattern to accomodate the row gauge, which is Way, Way, Way off.  Because this pattern and this yarn were Meant to Be Together)

See? It is like fate is conspiring with me to make it impossible not to start this: Tweedy Aran Cardigan - Norah Gaughan - IK Winter 01/02.

Internet, I give you Lucy.  With, you know, Diamonds. 

Somebody stop me.