Missing

1 sense of humor.
1 sense of perspective.
1 measure patience.
The sense I was born with.

More importantly, though:
1 skein Claudia Handpainted Fingering/Sock in Taupe.
1 partial skein ditto in Moss.
5 Barn-raising Quilt Squares, 1 each in Claudia Handpainted in Walk in the Woods, Moss and Taupe, and ShibuiKnits Sock in Dragonfly and Pagoda.
1 set 8" KA bamboo dpn's, US 2/2.75 mm.
1 set 6" (5"?) KA bamboo dpn's US 2/2.75 mm.

I know I had them. If I doubt myself, I can look right here. As of a year ago yesterday they all existed, ergo they must all exist now. It's called object permanence, or maybe it's the conservation of energy and matter. Something like that. So where did they go? And when I find them, will I also find my sense of humor, my sense of perspective, my measure of patience . . . ?

Knitting in the Tunnel

It isn't a very good place for knitting. For one thing, it's dark. Also kind of twisty. Not to mention dank. But I'm not actually digging through the rubble at the moment, so it seems a better place than it's been. Undeniably, though, knitting has been rather thin on the ground. I can give you a litany of all my failures or a fantasy preview of all my plans. Perhaps both, clearing the decks and then going on to prove my cockeyed indomitable determined optimism (Hark. Is that Bernstein's Candide playing in my head? "Once one dismisses the rest of all possible world's one finds that this is the best of all possible worlds . . . .Objection! What about snakes?").

Anyway. It is said that confession is good for the soul. With that in mind, a not comprehensive, albeit indicative, exposition of -- let's err on the side of charity here and call it -- interrupted knitting.

The Great Race for Afghans for Afghans? Lost it. On three counts, because I didn't even manage to rid my house of the purple sweater.

Their Father's long-dormant cardigan? I am seriously looking at frogging the back because I don't want the cables from the front to just stop at the shoulder seam. Right now I just avert my eyes from it. Some ostrich-ish notion that if I keep it out of my direct line of sight I won't have to actually do something about it.

The Ab-Fab Afghan I Intend to Absolutely Love? Not even cast on. Even a one row, 17 stitch repeat of Old Shale is apparently too much. (One of the reasons the Great Sweater Race fell apart was because I kept blithely --blindly? -- knitting stockinette when I should have been reading the pattern, with the result that the green sweater lost it's cables and the blue one needs to find it's neckline decreases.)

Enough. On to the fantasy part.

Er. Hmm. It's seems that well is dry. How disconcerting. How fortuitous, then, that I have been invited to produce a piece of knitting that -- based on the above recitation of aborted knitting projects -- precisely fits the current shape of the knitting hole in my life.

Small.

Simple.

For someone else.

Too bad it's a secret so I can't tell you much more. How about this, though? I have to make one decision.

Which color? I can't be expected to decide - the light in this tunnel is terrible.

Two Hours

Less, even.

Yarn - Tess' Designer Yarns Hand- dyed merino bulky in colorway Maine Woods and Waters.

Needles - US 11/8 mm Addi Turbos.

Pattern - Paddington Neckwarmer by Roxanne Wood/netofbeing.

Buttons from stash.

Skinny buttons and bulky yarn do not a good match make. I stripped one strand off a short length of the yarn, pulled the rest through the button holes with a fine crochet hook and knotted it several times to make a shank. I fastened the buttons on by tying the yarn around a stitch (as opposed to threading both ends through the same space).

I continue in the Tunnel of Life. While I am not yet convinced that the light at the end is an oncoming train, I grow mightily tired of finding out the light is only a place where the tunnel has collapsed and, not only have I not reached the end, I have to dig through all the rubble and repair it before I can go on. If someone could please send me a sense of humor I would be most grateful.

Two hours only, but it was two hours with my knitting needles in my hands.

Giddy

Such excitement over here at Chez WoolGathering. We have been hoping and planning for some time, but now it's definite. We are to have a Guest from a Foreign Land this Summer.

We're taking her to Stitches, even though she's not so much into the knitting thing.


Yet (cue sinister and diabolical laughter requisite for villainous, knitterly plotting of the taking over the world variety).