Makin' Knit

the sleeves and the body are united and I’m working the decrease part of the EZ Seamless Hybrid sweater. I’m doing it in moss stitch which is easy for me but not particularly exciting. But the whole point of this sweater is not for it to be exciting, but for it to be done. I’m really tired of having this yarn sit around unworked. I just want to be through with it.

Doing everything exactly the same way I did it last time, I connected the sleeves to the body of the sweater. I decided to do this shoulders in moss stitch because I didn’t want to learn a new stitch. Had I tried to use linen stitch, I would have had to learn how to do it first and that just seemed too hard. I’ve got the decrease pattern started, and finally, it feels like it’s all downhill from here.

I have gotten to a really cool place on the Brooks Farm sweater. It’s now time to join the sleeves and the body and continue on upward to the neck. I’m thinking about using linen stitch, and I’m excited about getting started. But before I do, I’m going to go to the Tuesday’s farmers market in downtown Concord.

Knitting feels like a chore now. I’m still working on the sleeves for the Brooks Farm sweater. They are turning out to be handsome, and I like the stripes, but it feels like they’re taking forever. I just want to be done.

I’m starting again to try to write regularly. Makes me feel like a salmon swimming upstream leaping up the rapids and then sliding back down, over and a over. I think writing regularly will be an important achievement for me. Validation that I do indeed have something to say.
I am working assiduously on the sleeves for the The Other Brooks Farm Sweater, and much to my surprise, because of the circumference of the sleeves, the yarn is working out to be a regular pattern of stripes over about 7 rows. I’m pleased with the effect altho it’s nothing like what I expected.

and I have been ripping. When it came time to put the sleeves together with the body of the Donegal tweed, I originally decide to switch to seed stitch instead of continuing the ribbing. It tooke about 3″ to decide that the looked funny. So yesterday, I took it all back and started over. OK. It’s all knitting.

I like the way the kilcarra tweed is coming along. Yesterday I joined the sleeves to the body and started the downhill slope to the finish. I decided to switch to moss stitch for the caps of the sleeves and I’m keeping the cable. The only remaining suspense is figuring out how to work the saddles. But the good news there is that if I can manage the saddles, I can apply the same technique to the button band of the long unfinished Noro Iro jacket. And finishing that would be wonderful! It’s been an albatross around my neck for a couple of years now.

I’m coming back to this. I still need to increase my communication and involvement with the world, and this blog is a way to learn communication and involvement.
I’m kniitting on a Kilcarra tweed sweater, and enjoying it. I like that the yarn is really from a relatively small producer in Donegal.
I decided to actually follow Elizabeth Zimmerman’s percentage system and so far things are working out just fine.
I opted to do the body and sleeves in 5×5 rib, and am not certain how that will work out when I pjut the whole thing together because the ribbing pattern on the sleeves won’t match the pattern on the body where they meet. I am assuming that I will figure something out when that happens, but I am nervous about it.
Hmm, I suppose I could go to Men Who Knit or Ravelry and ask for advice. Maybe I will.
In other news, I am goign to go for my first tricycle ride in more than a year this very morning.

I have started to string good days together. Every day this week has been pretty good in fact. Haven’t walked any more than absolutely necessary because I still need my crutch for balance. But I’m feeling more at peace about even that.
Tomorrow is my set to with the new doc to tell him that either he comes up with another new regimen that manages my selling and inflammation better, or I’m going to go back to the old regimen with or without his approval. I think I may be sorry I didn’t stay with the old docs even though they were hard to get to. They would all just do what I told them and write the *damn* prescriptions, instead of being independent minded. The problem is that I really do need him to write my methotrexate and prednisone prescriptions. You really can’t get those without one.
I haven’t done even one more stitch of knitting since Monday, but I have done other things: like play in the garden, and get to my Italian class, so I have an excuse. I’m planning on buckling down and really knitting seriously for part of both days this weekend. I *need* to get those stockings done.

Last night at Knitting, Catarina mentioned that she actually does read and value what I have been saying. So that’s reason enough to keep on saying it.
I am tired and frustrated with the amount of my life that I spend tired and frustrated. I keep looking for ways to make permanent improvements. And I am feeling like there really aren’t permanent improvements to be made. Every day I am a little bit older, and therefore a tiny bit less capable. That simply is a fact. My rheumatoid arthritis is not going to go away or even get substantially better. That simply is another fact.
The trick that I am looking for is to accept those facts without letting them stress, depress, and discourage me. After all, they are simply a sampling of the countless facts of which my life is composed. Other equally germane facts are that I am much loved by a good man, that even at Knitting, I am surrounded by people who like and care for me, and that some days, like today are brilliant blue-sky, glad to be alive days.
So at least for one day, the story is about choosing which particular facts I want to attend to: the good news, or the bad news.
And that actually brings me roundabout to the topic of Pollyanna. I do not wish to be a Pollyanna, who pretends that life is always pink ribbons, rainbows and fluffy white clouds in a lapis lazuli sky. I do want to be clear-headed and clear-eyed and to attend to the good news about my life rather than the bad.
And for the first time in a very long time, there is actual knitting content in this blog. I have started on the crash project to do Christmas stockings for Nancy and Sonny, both to thank her for her magnum opus bedspread but also to give her a gift before she is too ill to appreciate it. I am doing them Portuguese style with the yarn around my neck. And I really like it. It’s easier on my hands because it doesn’t use the fingers that get numb, and it appears to be faster, and much much easier to maintain reasonable tension with multiple colors. The one I am working on is going well, and I have a purpose for doing it, and am enjoying it so life is good. Pix to follow.