If This Works

If this works, then I’ll be able to show you this picture of my current working set up, which is me, a wireless keyboard, and my ipad.

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If this works, then I’ll be able to tell you that yesterday morning, my laptop suffered what appears to be a fatal seizure, and is now in having the better part of its guts replaced, which is no less than it deserves. (I know, I know. I shouldn’t be angry with it. At least it gave me warning that it was unhappy, at least it told me that it had problems. At least I had a chance to back everything up, meaning that this is really just inconvenient, not a terrible loss that I can’t recover from, and I know I saw this coming and had time to make my peace and say my goodbyes, and that’s something.)

If this works, then I’ll be able to tell you that I’ve got my knitting right there beside me, and everytime that I discover some other vital part of what I use a computer for, that the ipad can’t do, I knit a half row to take the edge off of my impotent rage.  (I tried to hook a wireless mouse up to the ipad for about 20 minutes yesterday until I realized that of course you can’t do it. The thing has no courser to control. It’s a touch screen.  I can’t believe I tried for so long. I only look smart some days.  It’s the glasses.)

If this works, then I will also be able to tell you that I freakin’ snapped last night, and knit several centimetres of a sock that is not a white baby blanket, because, well – it’s all too much.  I’m not sorry I fell off the wagon either.

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If this works, I’ll also be able to tell you that if any pictures show up, I have no idea what size they might be – but I’ve already lost 40 minutes of my life trying to figure that the *&^%$# out, and I have my limits.

Of course, if this doesn’t work, I’m going to go get a beer out of the fridge, and sip it while I smash the ipad into a million pieces, with a nice round rock from the garden, and I doubt I’ll be sorry about that either.

I’m hitting publish. We’ll just see if this works.

You know what I mean

Look at that.

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I know, I know, it doesn’t look like much.  As a matter of fact it probably looks a lot like the last time you saw this blanket, but trust me, it’s finally a lot bigger.  Two whole repeats bigger – and that’s a ton. I think I’ll need about 12 repeats  – but I’m not sure. When I get closer to what I think is done, I’ll slip the whole thing onto a long circular and block it, and make my decision then.  I’m hoping something amazing will happen, like it will grow vertically far more than it does widthwise, but my swatch tells me that I’m dreaming.  Still, wouldn’t it be lovely if just this one time, a swatch lied to me in a way that was helpful and supportive? It could happen.  (Note to newer knitters: No it can’t. Swatches are necessary and helpful to a point, but they have a malicious nature that can’t be denied. They have shallow, petty lives, probably as a result of being denied the privilege and honour of becoming real objects, rather than devices.  It twists their hearts. Don’t turn your back on them for a minute. They can turn on you in a heartbeat, and the next thing you know you have a seven metre baby blanket or a sweater with arms that drag on the ground. Knit them, use them, but do not ever, ever trust them to the exclusion of your own wits.)

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Shall I distract you from the emotional abyss of acres of plain white knitting with a few Karmic Balancing Gifts? Karen has a lovely thing, five copies of her Christmas stocking collection Trinité de Noël. (Karen sweetly notes that if you don’t do Christmas, she has other patterns you could sub.)

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She’ll be in touch with Ulrike B, Dana H, Duffy S, Kerry D and Sara O.

Sarah says: I have a lovely skein of handspun, spun from a batt containing merino, cashmere, tussah silk, alpaca, mohair, firestar, and who knows what else. It looks to be about worsted weight and roughly 170 yards.

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It is beautiful, and Cathy C will be enjoying it soon.  (Beautiful spinning Sarah.)

Margaret at Little Gidding Suri’s has two beautiful skeins of their Suri Ultimate for a present.

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Kay H should be able to make something amazing.

Marit is willing to part with a beauty, it’s this yarn, in a gorgeous colourway called “field of dreams”.  (How perfect.) She’ll be sending that to a new home with Shell F, who I bet will make it very welcome amongst its new friends.

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Bonnie is really giving until it hurts –  Seven skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca – a sweater’s worth! Color #6279, all the same dye lot.

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Alisson G is going to be so thrilled, I’m sure.

Rachel has three gifts to give away today.  (Can you believe how nice everyone is? It’s killing me.)  First up, this skein of Gypsyknits BFL Superwash Fingering (Colorway: Storybook) will be going to Leslie F.

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Then TWO skeins of Berroco Lustra will be re-homed to Jeannie P.

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Finally, last but never least, she’s sending a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Yarn Possum Sock (Colorway: Palm Beach) out to Julia C.

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Let’s do one more, I like this one a lot.  A few years ago, Sunshine received this yarn as a Karmic Balancing gift, and she’s been guarding it carefully until her knitting needed some good mojo. Today’s that day, and she’s sending it back out into the world to find its forever home.

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Three skeins of tilli tomas’s Beaded Plie in Olive.  100% silk  with glass beads. It’s lovely stuff, and I hope that Jill P will make something so beautiful.

I’ve emailed all the lucky knitters, so if you think your name is here, look in your inbox!

A little and a lot

A little and a lot sums up my weekend – and the week previous, really.  A little knitting, and a LOT of Bike Rally.  Being on the Steering Committee really is more time than just being a rider, or a Team Leader – although that took lots of time last year, and I was already working pretty hard this year, when last week, through a series of events, I became a Team Leader as well.  Ken has graciously agreed to be my Co-lead, so I know it will be as fun and easy as it can be.  The same combination of events that led to me becoming a Leader again also culminated in a rather epic weekend. One where I swept two rides, back to back, in the rain. The first one was Saturday, and while the early half of the 94km ride was beautiful, if as hot as Satan’s armpit, the afternoon was epic. The skies opened, and it rained, and rained, and rained in huge thunderstorms, and twice we pulled off the road to cower in transit shelters, waiting for the storm to lighten enough that it was safe to ride. The roads flooded, my shoes squished, and every time I sat myself down on the bike seat, the rainwater soaking the padded parts of my shorts was squished out and ran down my legs.  It was disgusting, and fierce and I can’t tell you how long it took.  Forever.  Joe came and picked me up at the end and I shivered all the way home, sitting on a grocery bag in the car so that I wouldn’t soak the seats. (That didn’t work.)

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I took that picture in the car. Those socks were white when I started.

When I got home, I had a much needed bath, leaving a startling amount of road grit and dirt in the tub behind me, and pulled together a family dinner for my lovely daughter Amanda, who turned twenty-six this weekend.  Then I think I knit a single row on the blanket, and fell asleep on the chesterfield, sitting up, needles in hand.

Sunday morning dawned very rainy and cold, and at 5:30 am I got a text from my other half on the Steering Committee, and the two of us went back and forth about whether or not we should cancel the ride. Was it too cold? (A high of 8 degrees.) Was it too rainy? (100% chance of light rain all day.) In the end, we decided to do it, and both drove over to make the magic happen.  We were the lucky ones yesterday – we were sweeping in a car. Every long training ride has four sweeps. Two on bikes that bring up the rear so nobody gets left behind, and two in a car who answer the emergency number, help riders make tricky turns, keep everyone on track and help with flat tires, or riders who can’t continue.

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That was David and I yesterday – and as wet and cold as we were for the day, the riders were so much worse off.  David and I decided that the best thing we could do was make it as easy for them as possible. It was too cold and rainy for them to really work from their maps, so we’d drive ahead, and I’d leap from the car, and go stand in the road to signal all their turns. (Wet and cold are bad enough. Wet, cold and lost would be so much worse.) It was surreal to see how dedicated they were. Just surreal. One of the hardest rides I’d ever seen, and they all just put their heads down and did it.

My knitting was in the car with me, but I didn’t knit a stitch all day – I was in and out of the car, reading maps, trying to locate them, or running alongside the cyclists shouting their next direction to them. By the end of the day I was exhausted and cold – but not nearly as exhausted and cold as the riders, and I had completely run out of ways to tell them how impressed I was with their crazy moxie.  Last night was a repeat of the previous evening. A hot bath, and then I fell asleep with knitting in hand, unknit.

Today I’m catching up.  I had a big sleep last night, I’m spending the day at my desk to deal with everything that didn’t get done while I was getting rained on, and tonight, if I can stay awake, I’m knitting the everloving daylights out of that blanket.

See you tomorrow – I hope you can understand the delay on the Karmic Balancing gifts – I’m so tired. I’ll get to them tomorrow. Thank goodness all this is worth it.