About 6 weeks ago, during the first week of January, I sat on a bus across from a young woman carrying a snowboard. She'd likely gotten it as a present and taken it out that day for its first runs. The colors and designs still looked clear and unmuddied, in contrast to the bottom foot or so of her insulated pants. She obviously enjoyed her turn as the point of interest on that bus run.
I envied her a bit. Usually I ride with my knitting for a good 20 minutes of progress each way and an opportunity to sit and knit over coffee after my appointment. But that day I had just a book with me. It was a knitting book, but still, books are common on the bus and I'd grown used to being among the less common.
We'd taken our usual multi-week trip out of state for the holidays, but this year I picked up the cold from hell on the way home. That day I was "well" enough to go out, but hadn't managed to start a new project and had nothing in a pick-up-and-knit state.
Two weeks later I sat on the same bus reading the same book, now overdue at the library, on my first day back out following another stint in bed struggling to breathe. I still hadn't cast on anything, or posted to this blog, or caught up on my e-mail, or all the other thousand things I needed to do to get back to normal life. It took another week of sleep to feel up to playing catch-up and I'm still nowhere near there yet.
But, a bit over a week ago I came to grips with my self-imposed impending deadline of at least one (I'd started with a plan of 3) new sweater for the Madrona Retreat and the fact, hard as it was, that I actually had to knit something for that to happen.
So, in fits and starts, I finally picked my November NaKniSweMo top-down sweater back up as my first NaKniSweMoDo project, re-watched Lucy's section on one of her DVDs about picot bind-off and cast off the friggin' body of the sweater. I did get the neckline edging picked up and done - twice - and started on one of the 3/4 length sleeves before I had a day of running around so I could be gone for 4 days at Madrona. The sweater actually got finished, other than blocking, Saturday night in the hotel bar. That is, finished if the slight wonkiness still in the neck edging blocks out. If it doesn't, I'll undo the bind-off and try going down yet another needles size - I went down 2 already - and decrease in a few more places to pull the edge in yet more - I did decrease 10% of the stitches after I picked up and I decreased a few around the edge when I bound off. Karen thinks it's the 'liveliness' of the Socks That Rock that makes it want to stand away from the body.
But, despite not finishing anything in time to wear it there, Madrona was as exhilarating and exhausting as I expect from it and I've already started the next sweater. Plus, I have a ton of blog fodder now that I can make myself sit down and get back to it. I think I'm up and running again.
Woo-hoo!
And welcome back!
(I guess my cover is blown, now that it's out that I give knitting advice in hotel bars...)
Posted by: akabini | February 19, 2009 at 06:47 PM
Welcome back, Karen! So glad you enjoyed Madrona.
Posted by: Karen B. | February 22, 2009 at 05:49 AM