I just sat down to say that a tentative peace has settled over the house, with no upsets or emergencies for a few days now, and no sooner had I typed that than the cat heaved a hairball onto the living room carpet and the phone and internet went out.  I took this as it was intended – clearly a warning, and made a pot of coffee and sat down to knit until order was restored.  No more will be said of how well things are going. Apparently good days don’t like direct eye contact.  Not a problem.

The Kiama jacket and I have taken up again with each other. I unpicked the bound off edge, and got all the stitches back on the needle, and I’m in the process of making the whole whack of the thing longer.  

When I decided to stop shorter than the pattern called for, it was because I was pretty happy with the length in the back. I’m short, most patterns aren’t and I almost always shorten stuff to match my reality.  Unfortunately, as I was knitting this, my nature given wits apparently took their leave for a bit, and I didn’t take into account that due to the funky construction,  shortening the back also shortened those drapey fronts.  Now, my front is as short as my back, so that would be cool, except for the rather inconvenient breasts that have to be taken into account.   On the model, those fronts drape past her breasts most elegantly (I suspect she may have more elegant breasts) but on me, now suddenly ended precisely at nipple height,  giving my normally rather normal looking assets a look that looked like I’d pitched a double-wide tent rather crookedly over a watermelon patch.

If you’re having trouble visualizing that, just stop and be grateful that you didn’t have to live the moment of low-self esteem that went with witnessing it. I’m 41, and I have working class breasts that have done a lot of service time, and I’m pretty okay with how (and where) they are, but really, after that experience,  I’m never going to think of them quite the same way.   I’m adding a couple of inches, but if I add as much as I think I need to give me the length that I want in the front, the whole business is going to be past my arse in the back. 

I think the answer is short rows.  I’m going to add to the length in the fronts without adding to the back, I hope.  Details tomorrow, assuming I finish and can take the emotional risk of trying it on again.

The events of the last few weeks have led me to believe that our family has been specially selected for an experiment in stress. On top of the strains that we’ve come to think of as normal since Christmas,  in the last week or two we’ve had one extended family member have major surgery, me away for sock camp,  been invaded by cluster flies, had an extended family member have a run in with a table saw that resulted in a pretty horrific accident,  (They’re more or less okay now- though minus a couple of bits.) then the spouse of that person had their mother die. (She was old,  the circle of life stuff is easier to take, but still falls into the category of "really big deal".) Then the family member who had the surgery and was recovering nicely suffered a near fatal pulmonary embolism and scared the snot out of all of us.

My reaction to this has been to go where I am told, do as it is suggested would be helpful and to… um.  Knit socks.

(Yarn: JL Vinca colour 551. Very economical, but I can’t speak to how long it will last.  It’s 25% nylon, but rather loosely spun with the occasional slub. Time will tell. Sure is pretty)

Plain vanilla socks, churned out while waiting, while travelling to the funeral, while navigating phone calls…

In all of that though, through all of those really unlikely events occurring in a very unlikely manner, all twisted up together – the unlikeliest of all, was this.

My sister Erin learned to knit.  On these socks, in the back of the car on the way to the funeral.  Six of these rounds belong to her.  (Thanks to my brother Ian for the picture.)

Further to that, she liked it enough to ask for another go later.

And even looked like she enjoyed it. She’s pretty good at it too.

Feel that cool breeze? Someone check the thermostat in Hades, will ya?