I think it’s a shawl

So this morning I got up and trucked myself down to Toronto Western Hospital for a 30 minute eye doctor appointment. (Actually, Joe trucked me, since I discovered that the front wheel of my bike is suddenly on backwards.) The 30 minute appointment turned into a 3 hour one, during which I was ritually blinded with the accursed drops of doom not just once (oh no…we wouldn’t want it to wear off…) but twice. Here I am, blind and pissed off (Note to any ophthalmologists reading the blog: I am aware that the drops are for the greater good. I understand that I have been blinded out of the doctors love and concern for my eyes and that it only seems that they are mean spirited and difficult) and hoping that I am writing coherently, but with no way to see the words I’m typing…I can’t be sure. (Please forgive any typos that exceed my normal level of typos).

Since it was three hours of waiting, I knit. I knit on my vacation knitting, The Lotus Blossom shawl. (Don’t ask what yarn. I can’t read the stinking label.) It looks like this:

Blur

The woman sitting next to me (also ritually blinded) said “That’s a pretty colour. ” Then, squinting at it…”What is it?”

“Well” I replied, “before the drops….it was a shawl”.

“Oh” the lady said (somewhat surprised) “How can you see what you’re doing?”

“I can’t.”

“But you’re knitting anyway?”

“Yes.”

“So…If it *was* a shawl….what is it now?”

Good question lady. I guess I’ll find out later when my vision clears and I can divine the damage I’ve done in the last 6 rows where I couldn’t see the chart or the knitting at all. I’m not sure what it says about me that in order to not just sit there bored, I’m willing to knit something so badly that I’ll have to have a total frog and do-over this evening.

For the rest of today (since interpreting which of my vacation pictures to post represents a technical difficulty in my ritually blinded state) I was going to write about my new Artfibers Siam and how I was going to knit it into Annie Modesitt’s Silk Corset, despite the difficulties the change in gauge represents. I had the yarn, the pattern and a pretty clever post written when I looked at Claudia’s entry for the day. Turns out that Claudia and I are channelling each other in a way that would really scare the crap out if me if I didn’t like Claudia as much as I do, as well as seeing the immediate benefit of her being a little ahead of me…so she can take some of the heat on this little experiment. Therefore, go read her post, but substitute this colour.

Chai

(Just imagine mine sort of blurry….and Claudia? Send me those pattern notes…will ya?)