Monday, February 13, 2012


Sky scarf

I know you’ll enjoy doing it, Kristie. It takes so little time that it is easily fitted into the routine of the day. I think it is well worth while trying to do it at more or less the same time every day – maybe that’s obvious, but I don’t think the designer mentions it. The brief daily experience of standing there and looking upwards and thinking about it is cumulatively very interesting. Maybe one should have studied meteorology.

Greek Helen will be here in a fortnight. Her son Archie is to come to school in Britain next year, as I think I’ve mentioned. One possibility is an Edinburgh boarding school, and he is scheduled for a “taster week” there at the end of February– an excellent idea. She was here in early January when I met the Sky Scarf idea in Zite, and was full of enthusiasm. I look forward to showing it to her.

She will hasten back to Athens once she has dropped Archie at the school gates. I get to collect him at the end of the week and enjoy the first debriefing and deliver him to the airport.

It is fascinating, on Ravelry, to see what different things people are doing with the Sky Scarf idea.

Sleeveless vest

I swatched – the ideal knitting for rugby-watching – and cast on. My husband prodded me into this project by saying it would take no time at all. I think he rather underestimates his circumference. I’ve made a decent start on the ribbing.

I had a bad moment last night, when I discovered that I had managed to pick it up and set off in the wrong direction. I got all the way around and then discovered the gap. That comes under the heading of Fatal Error. It’s not the first time in my life that I’ve done that, but it’s rare, not least because it would seem to be impossible to do it inadvertently.

But I’ve frogged, and picked up the stitches – they are very well-behaved, in madelinetosh – and re-oriented them all and retrieved errant plys. It’s loosely twisted and there was some straying. So now I’m back in the saddle. It’s wonderful stuff to knit – I keep saying that.

And my perennial anxiety – have I got enough yarn? – should be easy to deal with, this time. I’ve got six skeins. I’m knitting in the round. So when the first skein is finished, I should have achieved something like 1/6 of the desired length. The skeins do look very different from each other – Jimmy Bean warned me. It wasn’t a problem with the Scarlet Brownstones – the skeins were certainly different then --  and I  hope it won’t be this time.

Miscellaneous

The hat is the size it is, Tamar, because the Seamen’s Society was very specific about what they wanted: 10 rounds of ribbing, 32 of st st, in dk. So that’s what I did. Now I’ve got to make and address a package.

Thank you for your comment about my husband’s hand, too. Sort of worrying. He has an appt with the doctor next week, on Ash Wednesday, and is himself inclined to put up with it until then. It’s slightly better – the hand isn’t very useful, but there is little or no pain in repose. He can sleep. It is as if he had taken a blow – which he didn’t – on the back of the hand in that sensitive bit just behind the knuckles. 

6 comments:

  1. Barbara M.12:57 PM

    Hi, Jean...... I am still thinking about your question on important dates that need no reference to be understood. I wonder, could "1066" qualify? At least in my memory, it was never qualified as "The Norman Invasion," it was simply expected that you would know what we were talking about.

    Perhaps the year is a reflection of the state of the media back then. And I honestly wonder how much the overwhelming media drumbeat of "9/11" has to do with our instant recognition of the tag. I am not in any way playing down the significance of the event ..... my husband and oldest son both worked in the trade center, simply commenting on how often we hear the catch-phrase, even ten-plus years later.

    Barbara M. in NH

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  2. The Sky scarf fascinates me, too. I haven't started one because I don't use blues and grays so no stash. I'll go look at Ravelry.

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  3. Anonymous4:36 PM

    I'm with Theresa, love the idea but no blues. I flirted with the idea of a temperature scarf, for example: red for the 90's, cool green for 70's, icy blue for the 30's - but gave it up because I really didn't think it was going to be very pretty!

    Beverly near Yosemite

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  5. Anonymous6:58 PM

    Beverly from Yosemite:

    You could use a gradation of all one color to represent the temperatures, say from white to navy in blues, etc. Could be very pretty!

    Beverly from NJ

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  6. =Tamar6:59 PM

    Hoping it's something simple, but just asking: had your husband been doing more handwriting than usual?

    I have just read (last night) Oliver Sacks's book "Musicophilia" (2007). In chapter 22 he discusses focal dystonia, which began to be studied when two musicians "came out" about their problem but which was well-known as "writer's cramp". It has to do with repeated small muscle movements as in handwriting but, noticeably, happens with small cramped handwriting but does not happen with large open-movement writing like shorthand (or classic spencerian). Treatment is uncertain but in one case a combination of Rolfing and Botox helped one pianist, Leon Fleisher.

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