Son, now THAT's using your head. [subhead: this is actually Sept. 22]
[I saved this as a draft in July but edited it and finally posted it today, Sept 22 -- I don't know how to make it reflect accurate time!]
For weeks now, I've been planning a post with that headline. It owes to my 6-year-old's very first swim meet, in which he was actually 5 at the time, and in which he was fastest 5-year-old in freestyle and the 2nd-fastest in backstroke, his other event. And, by god, he swam a legal race, and I can say that because I'm a strokes-and-turns judge. He didn't use his arms, but damned if he didn't stay on his back all the way. His bangs were even dry all the way up to about 5 feet from the finish. See?
And then here's the source of the title of this post.
...
You don't see that one, one of my favorite pictures of all time, the one of him just out of the pool after the race, holding onto his head because that was the point of contact for his big finish, poor guy, because I CAN'T FIND THE PICTURE . My computer ate it. Or, actually, let's be more specific here: My 15-year-old daughter CAUSED my computer to eat it. I don't know what she did.
[Back to real time, September 22:]
Amazingly, there has been knitting.
This is many hours of work on the Diamond Tunic, from Norah Gaughan's gorgeous Knitting Nature, which I've set aside (read: stalled out on). I'm doing it in Rowan Calmer rather than the recommended yarn, because I got gauge in the Calmer ... which I actually had it on hand before I had my little accident at Amazon and got this book. This is for my mother, a joint gift from my sister and me -- D bought the yarn; I do the work (and I like my part much better, thanks) -- but it's kicking my butt. A 20-row cycle, with 20-stitch repeating cycles within each row that reverse halfway across the row, creating a mirror image across the garment, and the stitch cycles themselves seem random -- the brain wraps around the pattern a little bit by the time you end the row (kpppkkppppkkkpkkppppOrSomesuch), and it feels like you're getting a break on the even rows when you knit the even rows knitting the nooses and purling the purl bumps, but then you have a whole new series of cycles on the next row. And it's really cool to watch the fabric shape up -- I love the fabric, I love the Calmer -- but ye gods. It feels glacial. And, as we need a lot of ease here, it is vast. And it's not for me. And I wasn't having any fun, and I needed to, so I set it aside and picked up ...
...the wet spaghetti. Er, the Vintage Velvet from Scarf Style, which I finished this morning and is now waiting in the washer for my dryer to finish its current load. I did weave in the ends, but I have to wonder how well they'll hold -- Muench's Touch Me is slick as all get-out. Must say, though, I had a lot of fun knitting this, much more than when I started, and it's been fun watching my darlin' man smile when he sees me working on it.
Maybe I'll put up a post-felt shot less than three months from now, eh? For now:
As I waited for that photo to load, I realized that the dryer had stopped. So I got the scarf out of the wash, and -- urgh. Wet cat. It ain't pretty. I did read some other bloggers who reported similar alarm at this stage, and all was ultimately well, but I still think I'm gonna be sick.
Or maybe I'll just go work some more on me next Diamond Tunic avoidance project:
For weeks now, I've been planning a post with that headline. It owes to my 6-year-old's very first swim meet, in which he was actually 5 at the time, and in which he was fastest 5-year-old in freestyle and the 2nd-fastest in backstroke, his other event. And, by god, he swam a legal race, and I can say that because I'm a strokes-and-turns judge. He didn't use his arms, but damned if he didn't stay on his back all the way. His bangs were even dry all the way up to about 5 feet from the finish. See?
And then here's the source of the title of this post.
...
You don't see that one, one of my favorite pictures of all time, the one of him just out of the pool after the race, holding onto his head because that was the point of contact for his big finish, poor guy, because I CAN'T FIND THE PICTURE . My computer ate it. Or, actually, let's be more specific here: My 15-year-old daughter CAUSED my computer to eat it. I don't know what she did.
[Back to real time, September 22:]
Amazingly, there has been knitting.
This is many hours of work on the Diamond Tunic, from Norah Gaughan's gorgeous Knitting Nature, which I've set aside (read: stalled out on). I'm doing it in Rowan Calmer rather than the recommended yarn, because I got gauge in the Calmer ... which I actually had it on hand before I had my little accident at Amazon and got this book. This is for my mother, a joint gift from my sister and me -- D bought the yarn; I do the work (and I like my part much better, thanks) -- but it's kicking my butt. A 20-row cycle, with 20-stitch repeating cycles within each row that reverse halfway across the row, creating a mirror image across the garment, and the stitch cycles themselves seem random -- the brain wraps around the pattern a little bit by the time you end the row (kpppkkppppkkkpkkppppOrSomesuch), and it feels like you're getting a break on the even rows when you knit the even rows knitting the nooses and purling the purl bumps, but then you have a whole new series of cycles on the next row. And it's really cool to watch the fabric shape up -- I love the fabric, I love the Calmer -- but ye gods. It feels glacial. And, as we need a lot of ease here, it is vast. And it's not for me. And I wasn't having any fun, and I needed to, so I set it aside and picked up ...
...the wet spaghetti. Er, the Vintage Velvet from Scarf Style, which I finished this morning and is now waiting in the washer for my dryer to finish its current load. I did weave in the ends, but I have to wonder how well they'll hold -- Muench's Touch Me is slick as all get-out. Must say, though, I had a lot of fun knitting this, much more than when I started, and it's been fun watching my darlin' man smile when he sees me working on it.Maybe I'll put up a post-felt shot less than three months from now, eh? For now:
As I waited for that photo to load, I realized that the dryer had stopped. So I got the scarf out of the wash, and -- urgh. Wet cat. It ain't pretty. I did read some other bloggers who reported similar alarm at this stage, and all was ultimately well, but I still think I'm gonna be sick.
Or maybe I'll just go work some more on me next Diamond Tunic avoidance project:
posted by Tina at 7:32 PM
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