OK, I’m still fighting this low-grade fever. I am not a sit-at-home grrl, as you all know, so I’m doing what I can to keep my feet up and horizontal by knitting.

So far I’ve finished a stole, started and finished the Seaside Turkish-style socks, started and finished a beautiful mohair beret that is a tiny bit too small for me (but too perfectly proportioned for me to rip out and redo), started to finish some crocheted sox but decided to rip them out instead, and then last night started some wristwarmers inspired by Bonnie Marie’s Voodoo pattern from Knitty last winter.

I’ve been so delighted lately, you folks have been writing to me much more than usual. I hope it’s because I’m writing what you enjoy reading, rather than just that I’m not feeling well. I just love getting your notes.

Max and I have been corresponding about Turkish knitting and Bosnian crochet. Sharon P. missed me at Knit guild last night (she’s such fun to chat with, I missed her, too). Emma wrote again (she always makes me smile) and encouraged me to knit while healing (no problem with that, Emma, I knit whenever I’m awake and not otherwise occupied).

And then the nice folks who have written to me about my yarn colorway. Christina, Jo, Mare, Charlotte, Carolyn, Ruth in Houston, and Melissa.

Barbara wrote the last friendly note I received, wishing me good health. She says: “Browse KNITTY and choose something lovely to knit.”

Now, *that* is a great idea. Fortunately, I’ve printed out some of the Knitty patterns I might like to knit, as they have arrived. That means that I can sit on my couch and peruse my thee-ring binder full of Knitty patterns and other goodies.

That’s how I decided to make wristwarmers. The Voodoo pattern has inspired me for a long time. Of course, I change everything, it’s my nature. I made it on a larger gauge yarn (a worsted-to-bulky brushed mohair with a lot of body, I lost the ball band though). I decreased the number of stitches by a lot for my tiny wrists and huge yarn. I changed the rib from K2P2 to K3P1. But hey, it was an inspiration and Knitty provided the spark.

I am just not much of a sweater knitter (two sweaters in 2.5 years, and something like 81 pair sox in the same timeframe), and I look terrible in raglans which are waaaay big these days. The sweatshirt look is in, which means I’m out. Saves me buying yarn for a sweater, though! And saves me agonizing for months about how long the sweater will take to finish. It’s hard to carry a sweater in a totebag to knit in line at the Post Office, you know? No wonder I finish a lot of sox!

Back to the couch, to knit my Voodoo-inspired wristwarmers.

The new Fall Knitty is up!!! Enjoy the feast of goodies! There are 15 patterns (lots of sweaters/jackets this time… it is, after all, Fall), but don’t miss the articles, either.

I’m still feeling crummy. This is getting old. I did spend time resting on the porch in the hammock. Since that’s my favorite place in the world, I figure it’s good karma healing space. I hope.

I also dove happily into Anna Zilboorg’s book, Fancy Feet. (This book was also published in softcover as Simply Socks, but I sure can’t figure out why the publisher thought that a reasonable title… they did it against Anna’s wishes). The book is pure eye-candy for knitting patterns, whether socks or other projects. I love deciding and re-deciding what I might make, when I ponder that book.

I also started a new mohair beret. Actually, it’s nearly done already. I did it from the top down (sort of like a toe-up sock I guess) so that I could use every tiny bit of the yarn. It promises to work well, as did my last mohair beret.

I wear hats most days, in the summer often bright cotton ones I’ve purchased (they are crocheted somewhere out of this country). In the cooler months (about 9 months or so here in Michigan) I wear wool or mohair… some purchased and some handknit. They are a bit of a challenge to knit the way I want them to fit, but I’m finally getting the hang of the proportions I like.

I may start a pair of cropped-finger gloves tomorrow if I’m still unable to get out. I got some wonderful Koigu (yum, pinks and purples) yarn from my brother and his wife last Christmas and haven’t wound it into balls for easy knitting, yet. Gloves take more concentration than I usually have to give to my knitting, but this sick time requires more thinking than usual. The other cropped gloves I made (on vacation last January) I wear way more than expected and I’ve already had to repair the thumbs because they wore out. I could use a second pair, for sure.

Back to the couch. I hope I’m well tomorrow so I can go to Knitting guild. If I can’t go to guild I’ll pout a bit!

Late-breaking pictures added to yesterday’s post. Nighty-night!

Lisa B., a friend of Annie Modesitt’s who I was supposed to meet at the retreat this weekend, wrote me a very nice note today. She’s been reading my blog (she knows how to flatter me) but this weekend was the first time we’d corresponded.

Lisa took the sock class with Annie this weekend that I missed… and she used my yarn that I sent. You know, sometimes you sell things but you have no idea where they go, what “life” they have after they leave your hands. It’s wonderful to hear from Lisa. She writes:

The yarn you made for the retreat is even more spectacular in real life. My skien (sic) is vivid with purples and turquoise and white being the main colors and with bits of paler blues and greens running through. It’s knitting up really well, so lovely and easy to work with. I am knitting up lace socks for my soon to be 7 year old niece Nicole, who is convinced she is a real princess.

Well, that made my day! I hope the princess likes her socks. Thanks for writing, Lisa.

By the way, I seem to be turning the tide. I still feel like I have a cold but I can be upright a bit more. I’m sure glad I don’t have any appointments until Tuesday, though. I had hoped I’d feel better in time to play with my new knitting machine, now that the manual came in the mail. Instead I knit sox because I could do that with my feet up.

This evening I felt inspired to go back out on the porch in the hammock for a while. I hadn’t even been tempted by the outdoors for days. This is a very good sign. Maybe I’m on the mend. It is about time.

I do enjoy the pair I finally did knit this weekend. They are almost done, and I will take pics when I get there. I worked with the Ethnic Socks and Stockings book to figure out how to do the toe, heel and bind off at the cuff. I enjoyed studying this book this weekend. I’d browsed all the pictures and looked up a few details before, but this time I read it cover to cover and used several techniques she details.

Without multicolor stranded knitting, these do not look very Turkish (or eastern) at all. But I tried some features that I was intrigued by on my own Turkish sox. I did a swirl toe (four sections instead of the two on my cream/turquoise pair). I started with 8 stitches and it might have looked better with six, but it probably fits better this way.

Then I did what Priscilla Gibson-Roberts calls a banded heel. It is a lot like a Dutch heel, with a heel flap but the flap goes under the heel and the heel turn is up the back of the heel where you can see the detail under the cuff.

After turning the heel, you bind off the remaining stitches on the back of the heel. To start on the cuff, you start at the side of the sock and pick up exactly as many stitches as you had to start with (sometimes a few more but not many) and there is no gusset decrease. This part felt clumsy as I was not sure how long to make the heel flap and then I wasn’t sure where to pick up the stitches since I could not pick up one in each edge stitch. It worked out fine, though.

Books warn that Turkish socks don’t pull on well because of the lack of a gusset. However, they are often knit at a very tight gauge with unyielding stiff yarns. My yarn is so stretchy it works fine. In fact, I made the sock a little wider than I wanted because I was afraid they wouldn’t fit, but next time I’ll make them slimmer. I typically like my socks to fit very tight, as if they had lycra in them.

I bound off with a purl ridge, then one row of eyelets (*k2tog, yo*, repeat) and then two more rounds of purling before a bind off. This part looks quite Turkish/eastern, which pleases me. And then I decided to put two rows of “Bosnian Crochet” on top (that is what P. Gibson-Roberts calls knitting through the back side only of a slip-stitch crochet chain… my crochet teacher called it a ridge stitch if I remember right).

The foot won’t show much in a shoe but the top will look great. I plan to make a tassel to hang down on either side, either laced through the eyelets or not, I’m not sure yet.

The only decorative feature I used was a vertical strip on the center front of the sock. I used a five-stitch centered decoration of Purl 1, knit one, slip one, knit 1, purl 1… and on the next row, purl 1 knit 3 purl 1. This elongates the middle stitch. This feature was inspired by the lace design on Annie’s pattern, which also has a slip stitch every other row in the center front. This made me feel more connected to those at the retreat, even though I was doing a different design. (You can not see the purl stitches in the photo, as the sock is at rest. I’ll try to get photos on a foot later.)

Pictures soon, I’ll bet. I have maybe an hour left on these socks.

Well, here’s what some of you asked for. This is my own personal skein of the Seaside colorway knit up. The pictures are a little over-blue on my screen. I can see more white and turquoise on my sock.

Remember, I ripped out the whole sock you see samples of right now. The next sock I’m knitting up has more color blocks or small “pools” than this shows. This skein has very little of the purple and very limited white. Some of the skeins had more turquoise or more purple, some have lots of white. Such is the nature of handpainting. I do them all at the same time and that only means I used the same dye in approximately the same measurements per batch… but in a batch I just can’t control which skein absorbs what.

I really like it when yarn is totally random. Some people prefer defined repeats. My yarn has underlying basic repeats of purple and turquoise, with medium blue and light blue added later in different repeats. This means it looks more random but still has some general repeating. I’m pretty happy with this yarn.

Anyway, one sample here is stockinette and one is the lace pattern from Annie’s toe-up sock class. Her lace design is really lovely, isn’t it? I just realized that if it was lace I would not wear it. I am definitely not a lace grrl. I’ve knit this wonderful sportweight yarn so many times (other colorways) but never for my own feet. I just had to make these for me.

Since they were too big anyway (drat that changeable gauge of mine) I started over. I’m using features from my Turkish socks, learning how to do it from Priscilla Gibson-Roberts’ book, Ethnic Socks and Stockings. I’m actually reading through this book thoroughly this week since I’m sort of stuck on my back for days at a time.

I think I’m feeling better today, but still have a tiny fever. I slept a full 10 hours, what a luxury that was!!! Brian’s at work now so I’m alone. It’s a very good day to knit, read and nap, I guess. And listen to my Annette Hanshaw music collection. Too bad I don’t do this when I feel well, it’s a good combination for a great day, really.

Back to the couch…

Well, I’m still sick. I can’t tell you how hard it is for me to sit still even though I hurt all over. Finally last night I got out my “Chronicles of Narnia” books (by CS Lewis) and read one cover to cover. They are about 150 pages each and delightful. They are dated, as the one I read last night was copyright 1953, but the writing is excellent. I used to read the whole 7-book series through, every holiday vacation. I haven’t read them since I moved into this house, just before we were married, about 7 years ago. Last night it seemed the only way I could get myself to sit still when I really needed to keep my feet up and heal.

Today, I’ve been knitting Annie Modesitt’s toe-up sock that she will be using for the retreat class. She sent me a copy so I could do a knit-along even though I couldn’t come. Well, so far I really do like this Seaside yarn knit up into socks.

But: It is a lace sock and I just can’t get into lace. I don’t like fabric with holes in it (one reason I avoided crochet for so long) and I don’t like the frilly, girly sort of style it portrays.

I can knit lace, but since I’ve only done it once before for a baby dress, I made some mistakes. (I increased but didn’t do a corresponding decrease on two different rows, and by the time I realized it I needed to rip out 11 rows to fix it.) I hadn’t ever followed a lace chart before, so I was glad to have that new lesson under my belt.

I find Annie’s garter-stitch toe (it’s a toe-up sock) very intriguing. It’s easier than any other toe-up start I’ve used, and it mixes the colors of the yarns well. I somehow got mine on the wrong angle (it’s a square and one point is supposed to point up the middle of the instep, with stitches on a diagonal… and I got mine so that the garter ridges were vertical and it looks rectangular on the foot) but it would really fit well even the way I did mine.

On top of that, my eternally-changing gauge started me out wrong… Even with a swatch done a different day, I’m making a sock that is way too big. Add too big, to lace which I won’t want to wear, and a wrong-angled toe, and it equals a mess (can you tell I’m trying to knit with a new bunch of techniques when running a fever?).

Therefore, I think I’ll take a few pics of the yarn knit up, and rip the thing out. And start some other toe-up experience with the same yarn, hopefully in a better size for me. I do want to know how far I can knit the cuffs with only one skein of this sportweight yarn.

I really can’t sit up at the desk too long at one time, so the pics will wait until another time. Off to the frog pond!

This is what I’ve been doing for the last two days:

I’ve been planning to go to Annie Modesitt’s Seaside Knitting Retreat in Ocean Grove, NJ this weekend. This colorway is called “Seaside” and is a special dye run I did just for the retreat. I’m really pleased with it. I hope you can see it well (my screen tends to be bright so it may be dark on some other computers). It’s got two blues, turquoise, purple and white (for the ocean, whitecaps, and sky). I applied the dyes in four separate processes to get the color distributed well and without repeats as much as possible. I do what I can to avoid having my color “pool” when knitting, though that is trickier than it sounds.

They will be doing a toe-up sock class at Seaside, with afterthought heel and lace. It sounds like a great project. I really admire and respect Annie, and was really looking forward to meeting her, and learning from her.

However, I’m sick again (still?) and am actually running a fever after a week of being on antibiotics. Now that the yarn is completed, I am going to actually do what I should have done two weeks ago: Stay in bed for a few days. Why I have to be totally miserable before I let myself rest, I do not know.

But I am extremely happy with this colorway! And the underlying yarn is to die for, a springy and cushy sportweight washable merino. Yum! Total luxury on the foot. I hope folks like it as much as I do.

I’m still dyeing, so here’s a fascinating web page my hubby, Brian found. It’s all sorts of Op Art. The pictures are pretty huge, and they are all on one big webpage, so it will take a good long time to load unless you have a superfast connection. (We are using a 28.8 modem right now and it took some patience.) It’s still worth checking out if you have the time to wait a bit.

I’m spending tonight dyeing yarns, so I don’t have time for a long blog entry. Today *was* an absolutely gorgeous day…. sunny and 84F during the day (I love that temperature more than any other) and then tonight it was still warm enough to go out without a sweater or hat. The sort of day you just want to stay in the hammock while the sun goes out and the sky turns black. I didn’t even get in the hammock today but it’s a grand thought!

Since I’m working on yarns tonight I will offer you a fun link: life’s*so*rad comix. My co-worker (at JoAnn Fabrics) Corey (she modeled one of my JoAnn’s stoles, the one with turquoise hair) is a cartoonist with a zine called LSR zine & comix (LSR = life’s*so*rad, of course). What looks like her blog is at http://www.radcomics.com and information on her comix would be at http://www.poseur.org/radindustries/comix.html

The grrrl is talented and passionate about what she does. Check it out!

Well, we just got back from Wheatland Music Festival. We had a good time, but I am ever so glad to be home and bathed and comfortable! I am sad to see summer end, but I’m quite pleased to know that I won’t have any occasions to sleep in a tent for the rest of the year.

The first night we were there, it got very cold, in the 40’s (Farenheit). It was clear this would happen, so as soon as I got to Wheatland I set my hands to finishing the inside of the neck of my “Wheatland Sweater” (otherwise known as the year-long-sweater).

I started this sweater at Wheatland last year but didn’t get very far. I finished knitting the neck and cuffs in the springtime when I went to Iowa. However, I never bothered to deal with the inside of the collar (there was extra fabric in there, so I had to cut it away, a curved-horizontal “steek” like Norwegian sweaters use).

I had knit the sweater totally in the round (basically a tube) and then when I knit the collar I just picked up and knit new stitches through stitches in the sweater fabric in exactly the places I wanted the collar. Then on the inside, I used a crochet chain (one stitch in each knitted loop) around the collar (I did two rows of crochet because I was a bit nervous about a neck steek which was new to me).

Once the crochet was in place to keep the knit fabric from running, I pulled out the stitches for the area where I needed a larger opening and then cut the extra yarn about 2.5 inches from the crochet. Since the cut yarn ends were at the collar, I wanted to be sure they didn’t peek out so I worked those yarn ends into the back side of the sweater body fabric.

I’m pleased, the sweater fits just as I had planned It is big enough to wear several other layers underneath, including a sweatshirt. It is made of two strands of Lambs Pride worsted mohair-wool yarn held together as one yarn. It made a very nice blanket-like fabric, a sort of coat but more comfortable. I was so very happy to get that collar done before the sun went down, because I needed it that night to keep me from being very unhappy.

Take a peek at me here, wearing my new sweater (without the shoulder pads I plan to sew into it now that I’m home) and five other items I knit myself. From top down: Mohair/Charm beret, alpaca cropped-finger gloves, Wheatland sweater, Lambs Pride/Fun Fur water bottle holder (being used as a purse), Charisma legwarmers, and barely peeking out, Dale Freestyle socks. Oh, and I made the earrings out of polymer clay and telelphone wire about seven years ago.

Mostly we were there to play music with other musicians. (See picture of jam session with four ukuleles, including the banjo uke I’m playing.) However, we got a very good campsite thanks to friends who went there very early. The site was so close to the big stage that if you walked about 12 feet and peeked through the pine trees, you could see the performers on stage pretty well, from the side. So we were able to hear the stage without having to go out and sit in the sun or the cold, depending on the time of day. Last night I went to bed listening to Saffire, the Uppity Blues Women. Such a luxury that was, they are fabulous performers.

Take a look at our group’s camping area in The Pines (one of many camping areas at Wheatland), with tents so close together you can barely walk through the area. Can you see why I was so surprised at the Allegan Fiber Festival that I could drive my car right up to my tent without a zillion other tents? Surprised that I didn’t have anyone to talk to after dinnertime? I thought it would be as densely populated as Wheatland, although smaller in physical size.

Here are a few shots of the stage area, one from up on the hill showing how big that crowd was, and one from a great distance out in the listening area.

We stayed in a group with our friends Art and Marlene Cameron (Art is the friend who designed the ornamental grass garden where I took pictures of a tree frog and swallowtail butterfly, and Marlene and I are in Working Women Artists together). Check out the picture of Art playing Brian’s banjo ukulele, and then me playing the same instrument (I have one song I do with ukulele, Sweet Georgia Brownl)

When I was at Wheatland, I finished working in ends on one pair of socks and one sock of another pair. I also thought I finished another stole, but when I bound it off it just didn’t look big enough so I am going to take out the finish and add some more fabric to the piece.

One of my other friends from Working Women Artists, MargaBeth Cibulka, was there selling her fused glass work in the artisan area. I spent a good deal of time with her, sitting on the floor of her booth, chatting and knitting. That was really great, as I really like MargaBeth and I don’t get much time with her alone. See picture of artist’s area, MargaBeth’s booth is about the third one from where I was standing when I took the picture.

I really do enjoy the feel of this festival. It has something for everyone. There is an area called “Kids Hill” where there is a wonderful tall slide that the younger kids love, and a huge rockpile that is irresistable to the boys who are a bit older. There is always a place where a musician can find someone to play music with. There are all sorts of opportunites to dance, including a dance pavillion which has constant concerts all weekend.

There is an area focused on younger folks, with a drumming circle and a crafts area where you can do free projects like tie-dye shirts, crocheting, wire-wrapping stones for jewelry, or hemp bracelets. You can even get a henna/mehndi design (a sort of temporary tattoo) applied to your hands or arms if you choose (this is very popular with the teens-to-twenties crowd).

People wear tie-dye clothes en masse all weekend. There are children seated on every corner, playing violin/fiddle for tips. Kids collect bottles for the dime deposit. One kid I saw with a wagon said “Scotty’s wagon service #4″ or something like that. You could hire a kid to bring you ice for your cooler! There are booths to buy artworks, and I got a very nice lampworked-glass bracelet from a team of three girls, two of them age 15 and one age 14 years.

There is a different feel, a different style about it, sort of a small fantasy world but not as theatrical as Renaissance Festival. Even those folks who can’t be hippy-dippy in their normal lives, can sort of let down and join the relaxed crowd at Wheatland. Check out this funky old food trailer, painted up like a 70’s tour bus. It was a booth for a Methodist church youth group. Love the paint job!

In the end, I’m glad we are home. We had both extreme cold to very hot, Friday night to Sunday morning. We had to deal with the very un-favorite porta-potties. It was very dusty because it hadn’t rained (no mud though, so that was good), which made us both eager to get a good bath. And since I didn’t sleep much the first night because I woke up often from the cold… and Brian didn’t sleep much the second night because he stayed up playing music with friends until the wee hours… we will be extra happy to be sleeping in a regular bed with no distracting noises around us.

Wheatland always marks the end of our summer. It’s a great way to close the season.

Disclaimer: I do the website for Yarn for Ewe, my most local yarn shop.

That said, I’ve taken great classes and bought great yarn there. (I will buy great yarn no matter where I find it, assuming I have money in my wallet… but you just saw that gorgeous stole I made from the yarns I got at Yarn for Ewe, right? Lovely stuff.)

So… a few days back, I put up the new newsletter for the store, and just now I uploaded the final page: the class schedule for Fall.

Of particular interest is a class Wendy is teaching, Socks Knit from the Middle. She learned this technique which results in a re-soleable sock, from Anna Zilboorg (at the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan). The class is held on three Tuesday nights, and I’d have to reorganize my life to take that class, but it’s mighty tempting to try. My only reservation is that it isn’t knit in the round. Purling, ugh! But Wendy is great, and I would love to learn a new technique even if I never used it again. We’ll see.

Well, I woke up this morning and checked my email, and I have over 60 messages saying that an email message sent from purpletree.com has bounced. What a mess.

It seems that some spammer selling medications has sent junk emails using fake sender email addresses ending in my domain, purpletree.com. The body of the email messages has a link to a web page where they sell drugs of all sorts. But when the spammers send email to a list of addresses, many of which are not good, the bounced email reports come to me. The system assumes I need the notice, because I own the purpletree.com domain and it looks like my domain sent the spam.

AOL has now blocked mail coming from purpletree.com (actually my webhost) so if I wanted to send you an email and you use AOL, I can’t use my normal email address. The owner of my webhost has contacted AOL to straighten this out. There is no evidence that her machine was involved at all. It appears that the AOL computer system did an instant banning of our mail rather than looking to see who really sent it. (There are often clues in what are called “headers” of an email message, as to who really sent the message, where it really originated… and their system apparently didn’t look there to verify the details.)

Meanwhile, I may need to switch to using my msen.com address in my email system, so I can send my own mail without getting bounced. All three of my domain names; purpletree.com, LynnH.com, and ColorJoy.com, are handled through the same web hosting company, a company I’ve worked with for many years.

What a hassle. It’s hard to relax on the couch and get well when I expect that my emailbox will overflow with bounced counterfeit emails while I’m gone this weekend to Wheatland. I’m a bit worried that other domains besides AOL will start blocking my email.

Sorry for the downer note, I know so many of you write to me appreciating the upbeat nature of my blog. Today I’m still pretty optimistic and feeling mostly upbeat (I’m having a very nice cup of Indian Assam tea and it’s wonderful… and I got to sleep in this morning), but I now have to deal with the reality of modern life. The joys of owning three domain names come along with some possible hiccups, I guess.

I’ll let you know what happens. May you have a pleasant day devoid of any spam, viruses or unsolicited phone calls.

And tell somebody that you love them, if you get a chance. You won’t regret it.

Well, I finished my Yarn for Ewe stole when I was at the Allegan Fiber Festival, but I never seemed to get pictures. Thanks to Brian we now have pictures. Here’s me wearing it.

Isn’t it the most decadent thing? How nice of it to be practical as well! I insist on wearing it as everyday wear, to fend off air conditioning at work. Why not? It’s art and I’m an artist. Life is too short to save things for special. Folks go out of their way to tell me they like it. It makes everyone smile, not just me!

Here’s a detail photo, but it’s sort of hard to see the stitches in all that fuzz. I think I had six yarns in there and three were different types of eyelash yarns. That makes for fluffy-R-us!

You can see that on some of the rows, I did an elongated garter stitch. You can do this by wrapping the yarn around the needle twice as you make your stitch, and then just knitting into it once on the way back. That’s how I did it the first time I made a stole. However, lately I add length to stitches by doing a K1 YO repeat for all but the two edge stitches on either end, and then dropping the Yarn Over stitches on the way back. It is much more speedy and efficient, but I have to count my stitches more carefully. It is so easy to knit into a yarn over and make a nice big messy hole in the middle of a lovely stole! Counting helps me know right away that I have done something not quite right.

I am still feeling punk. Finally went to the nurse practitioner and she says I have a sinus infection. I’m praying I’ll feel much better with the meds, by the time we leave for Wheatland Music Festival at noon on Friday.

I am sure this bug “snuck up” on me a week and a half ago after we got back from the wedding. I have been tired ever since, and shaky. I think I just have been outside far too much this summer and my body finally said “slow down.” I just can’t breathe all that pollen and dust that long, without a few consequences. And of course I have not had enough sleep, which could help me fight this off.

I’ve been trying to be tough while I felt shaky off and on, to try not to be a wimp. Riding my bike to work two days in a row last week, even when it was soooo much harder than usual, was in retrospect a bad idea. And it is no wonder Renaissance Festival was exhausting to me. At least last night I did the right thing and stayed home from Borders in Ann Arbor. Maybe it was a blessing that Tony couldn’t go and I knew Jillian wouldn’t be there. It helped me decide to stay put for the night.

Now I have an excuse to sit still for a while. No, not just an excuse. A mandate. I need to heal.

I don’t sit still well (you knew that) but I can knit. I need to finish that collar on the sweater I started last year in September, so I can wear it at Wheatland Music Festival this weekend. It is all done including binding off the collar but I need to cut some of the fabric away (a sort of after-the-fact steek inside the garment) and the last time I tried to stitch to reinforce before cutting, the crochet chain I used to reinforce with was too small for my head to get through!!! That’s all I need to finish and I can wear it. Do you think I can handle that in the next two days? I’m sort of in a finishing streak, I think I’ll be done working in ends for 3 pair of sox this week. Love it.

I have to work 3 hours tomorrow late afternoon at Foster Center. I need to vegetate until then. I’ll plan to check in here before we leave for the weekend.