Thursday, July 12, 2007

It's big, it's beige...

taupe, actually. It's also DONE. Sorry for the crappy picture, but I didn't have time to Glamour Shot it. It has not been blocked, because blocking takes time and this week I have no time. I also need to block the Argosy Wrap, so maybe in about three weeks or so there will be a blocking party, but since it's 96 degrees at the moment, I don't feel any pressure to get this done. I'll take photos again after I get them blocked, and actually make an effort to pose them artfully like the Cool Bloggers do.

And now that the Prairie Lace Shawl done, I am reviewing the stash for the next project, and not finding anything that says "Oooh, oooh, me next!" In fact, everything in the surviving stash is just sort of sighing, "Yeah, we're here. Whatever." I can make buckets of socks, and I do indeed have a couple of pairs in progress for Boy, but socks are not calling to me right now. After those miles of taupe, I need color. Lots of color. Unfortunately, my stash is stolidly monochromatic, and it's just not doin' it for me. Chelle blogged about the discussion on KR about handpainted yarn. I read the discussion, didn't comment, but damn, I LOVE handpainted yarn! I love good handpainted yarn, and that generally means the pricier stuff, but give me Lorna's Laces, or give me death! I do agree that there is some clown barf out there, but there is also lovely soft beautifulness that takes a simple pattern and makes it stunning. And as we know, I am all about the simple knitting. I wish I could tell you in detail about what I do all day, but every single thing has a hundred moving parts and they all spin independently. By the time I come home, I have a Garter Stitch Brain. I am frequently too tired even for the minimum attention required for socks, but I still want the feeling of soooft and ooh, pretty sliding through my tired fingers.

So, I'm contemplating a deliberate and willful breaking of the No Yarn for a Year pledge. And I will announce it when I do it, and I will not feel guilty because I do not do guilt. I gave away, sold and otherwise pared down the Stash that the Husband's Cancer Built, and now I have only yarns I really do like and I really will get around to using. But none of it is calling to me right now. I have lots of yarns for lacy things, and no desire to get into anything that requires thinking. I am madly busy at work, though not in a hateful way, and I come home with absolutely no desire for Challenge. And when it comes to pleasure and ooh, pretty colors, Homer Simpson voice: "Oooh, Lorna's Laces...mmmm...." Better than donuts. So I have to sit and meditate upon the stash and my patterns, and decide what I really want to make, and then decide if breaking the vow will really bother me. I started the vow privately a month before the Cool Knitters Did It, so I'm in month 8. Yeah, there's something nicely symmetrical to going a full year, and even more neatness in timing it a full calendar year, but do I really care? At the moment, not so much. At the same time, I have no idea what I really want to make, so I'm not breaking the vow anytime soon. I have to have a purpose, and right now I don't have one. So maybe I'll just go back to the stash and finish something.

My mother had her wrist surgery today. She is fine. She drove me and Cousin C absof'inglutely batshit crazy with her fretting and worrying and obsessing and horrifying about it, and when it was over (before noon) she called me at the office to report that she was home, it was easy, everyone was so nice, and "You were right, I shouldn't have gotten myself so worked up about it! I should have listened to you!" She was a happy little ray of sunshine, again, and everything is fine. And that was before noon. Tonight around 7 she called me and was already complaining about the STRESS of having a bandage on her wrist, and a sling to use for a couple of days, and on and on. I'm going to go see her on Sunday, take her to lunch, grocery shopping, etc., and drag out the trash before I leave so she doesn't have to do it, and by Sunday I am sure she will be much better, because by Sunday she's allowed to take the bandage off. And if she isn't much better, I am going to silently flip back my hair to show her the growing-in patch on my head. (Which is growing in nicely, thank you.)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Color is good. You've done a lot of clearing out work, so go ahaead. I'm thinking variations on red for a winter over-the-coat shawl, myself.
The local clinic is collecting yarns to use for their various charity projects, if you were thinking about that. I might ditch my collection of acrylic that way, or save it for the library book sale.

Catherine said...

I don't have anything donate-able left. I done donated it. I really am down to a modest stash I don't want to part with, two nice sweater kits, enough yarn for a couple more, and maybe 3-6 shawls and a bunch of socks, three tanks and a couple of scarves. Some random skeins that would be nice as felted baskets. And, with that modest stash, I really want to make an afghan. sigh.

dragon knitter said...

did your mother even ATTEMPT to contact you/visit you while you were in the brain fug? sigh.

and we won't discuss my stash (and it doesn't help i work for someone who handpaints yarn, and keeps giving me bits of her stash!)

Sue said...

A year without buying yarn is a mighty expectation. After all that taupe, and trauma, go ahead, I say.It'll make you feel right with the world.

Poor old mama.

Bess said...

I am giggling so hard behind my hand, that tears are seeping down my cheeks.

Off to the attic this weekend. woo woo.
I'll tell you All About It when I'm back.

Catherine said...

dragon knitter -Oh, hell yeah my mother attempted to come visit, she wanted to move in and take care of me, and my very wise children kept her at bay, because they knew that might have finished me off. I did talk to her on the phone as soon as I was able, to prove I wasn't dead and the kids weren't lying to her, but having her in my house while I was trying to recover would have quite possibly caused my death. And that's a hell of a thing to say, isn't it? Yet totally true.

Bess - I know, it's funny, and if silently flipping back the hair doesn't get the message across, I'll launch into a speech: "See, you can hardly see the scar! That's where they cut my head open so they could take a POWER SAW and CUT OUT PART OF MY SKULL so the doctor could spend hours fixing the RUPTURED ANEURYSM! And I did not carry on about this as much as you have about a little operation on your wrist!" A little perspective would do my mother a world of good, but I think she's too old to change.