Of knitting and Stuff

In my post the other day, I said I would be knitting the sweater longer.  

And I am.  2 rows at a time.  I can knit one row and purl one row and then my hands feel tired.  Since going past tired would re-injure, I usually stop here.  I think I did 3 rows one day but that is it. No sock knitting on the side either.

I have finished the first small ball of yarn, meaning I have worked through half of what was formerly the ribbing.  I still have another small ball to go before I am longer than the ribbing.  It is slow but it is coming along.  I really am looking forward to this change.  It could be that the slowness of the knitting makes me savour it more and builds the excitement even more!  This is slo knitting,  (Is that a new 'thing'?) but fun.

The going through stuff is coming along too.  This knitting injury means there is no option but to finish going through stuff so darn it, I am going through stuff.  

I wish I could say I am finding more interesting stuff, but no, just stuff.  I am almost done the study, and then it is on to camping stuff and after that the laundry.  

I shudder when I think of the laundry room.  There are a lot of cupboards and shelves in there.  Talk about your deep dark corners...

Knits I have known and loved

Instead of knitting, I am continuing the long journey of going through stuff.  I could write soliloquy's on stuff, but I won't.  Not today. (I'm going to leave that hanging over your heads!)

I was going through photos yesterday.  I have to take three boxes of albums and turn them into something much less.  I would love to scan them all, but there just is not going to be time.  Not when there is so much left to do.  Next year.

As I was going through, I caught a few pictures of knitted things from long ago.  These are from the time when I wanted to knit so much, but could not find a teacher who understood what I needed to know.  They would be better photos if I had known I needed pictures of them!

 You have seen the blue scarf before.  I still have it.  They all have scarves I knit though it is really really hard to see them.  One camo, on burgundy, one blue. 1 x 1 rib with stripes on the ends and fringed.  The perfect boy scarf.

 My yellow sweater.  The only sweater I knit myself.  Very plain.  Very yellow.  I loved that sweater.

 The blue sweater.  Somewhere around here, I have a sweater wheel, which gave sizes for every sweater you could want...with raglan sleeves.  I think I knit the yellow sweater using the wheel too.

I had kind of forgotten this one, but I really do like it.  I had seen the two colour cable on a ladies sweater in a magazine and took a plain pattern and made this one up.  All seamed and not too bad a job if I do say so myself.  The sleeves are a little lumpy, but overall, not too shabby.

Wee little boy sweater in blue with lice!  I wanted a sweater for this little guy, which is why the blue and white raglan sleeved sweater above happened.  I had to keep just enough blue for this one.

And the very first thing I ever knit, other than a swatch in Brownies.  A sweet little sweater, with lacey bits on the bottom.  Apparently, I did it all. Colourwork.  Lace.  Who knew?

I look back at this and wonder at me.  Had I had just a little encouragement, just someone to talk to, would I have been a knitter all my life?  I think so.  I was doing things that no one showed me, that are pretty daring, like two colour cables and the stranded lice pattern and  combining patterns and I was doing it long before the internet.

In those times, no one where I lived admitted to knowing how to knit.  I had heard of one elderly lady in town who knit, but I did not know her, and didn't know any of her grandkids, and didn't know anyone to introduce me to her, so I could ask.  All I had left was to ask at a store, when stores did not answer questions in those long ago days.  Not mine anyway.

That is where the wonder of Ravelry and the internet and knitters connecting with knitters is so amazing.  We can knit alone if we want to, but we sure don't have to. No matter where we are, all we need do, to reach someone who understands this part of us, is turn on the computer and go looking.  

Google search:  34.7 million hits on the word Knitting and counting.

How to make your hands feel better

For me?  The solution is don't knit.

Sigh.

I do have lots else to do and there have been a few days where knitting has not been possible because of other busy things I have been doing and slowly, slowly my hands are feeling better.  To really cure them with speed, I would have to stop using the mouse with my computer, but that is almost harder to stop than knitting is.  

I did however, do something that is going to make long hours looking  at certain websites on the internet much less urgent and interesting and it will resolve itself in just a few days.  

But my hands are feeling a bit better and I do knit a little everyday, but when I even think I start feeling the ache in the palm of my hand, I stop.

We have had such cold weather these last few days.  It is cold overnight, but then is crisp and clear and wonderful during the day. perfect weather for outdoor things, like walks in the bush and skating on outdoor rinks. The suns insistent warmth is starting to break winters daytime chill.  It isn't spring yet, but when the midday sun is out full bore, you know it isn't far away.  'Tis the season of looking for sunny protected nooks with southern exposures.  'Tis the season to raise our face to the sun. 

Big Decisions

I am trying to make a decision this morning, a very big decision and I really hate doing it alone.  I also really, really, really hate making big decisions slowly.  I believe in doing the work ahead of time, to know the subject, and then making a decision.

I usually do my research, sort of the ends and pieces and then just go for it.  I once owned a yellow Ford Focus.  My husband and I had taken it for a test drive and he liked it. I had been looking at vehicles online for days and weeks and test drove two others.  

Since it was generally to be mine to drive, he asked what I thought of it and I looked at him and said well, I am thinking I like it.  Then I said we should buy it.  Hubbie and the salesman thought I meant one like it, with different options, but I looked at them oddly and said no, that one,  right there, with those options.  It had everything I wanted, had a really good stereo and was yellow. What more did I need?

The running gag for the rest of the time I owned that car, was that I bought it because it was yellow.  The truth was I did.  My niece, to whom I sold it?  She bought it because of the stereo!

Anyway, the decision took under a half an hour.  

When I bought my current bright red Honda Fit, the whole transaction took under a half an hour. I told the salesman I was about to make his day. He thought I was kidding till the deal was signed!

That Focus, and this Fit have both been pretty darn good cars.  Maybe I am brave enough to do this.  Maybe I can do it all on my own. 

Wow.  This is scary.  Scarier than I have ever known, but I think I just make my decision.

Goofing off

Goofing off this morning.  I am sipping my coffee and watching some tv and not much else.  Mostly I am going nuts without knitting.

I have only been able to knit 10 or 15minutes at a cracked, and only then 2 or 3 times in a day.  Yeah that last white socks was too much.  

I am sorting out a deep closet today and then it is time to hit the furnace room.  Yuck.  

I would really rather be knitting. 

Why I go to Knitting Groups.

I knit a sweater a long time ago that I have never been quite pleased with.  It wasn't that long ago, but for months now, I have been debating what to do.

It is an ok looking sweater, a little shorter than I wanted and the fronts were a little wider than I really needed but it looked reasonable. Not great enough to really really enjoy wearing, but decent enough not to want to rip back. It was merely OK.  Except for one fundamental thing.

A woman of a certain age, should never ever, ever, no matter how much she likes the look, knit herself a sweater with a shawl collar.  You can take a shawl off if you get too warm, but unless you take the whole sweater off, you are stuck with the shawl collar.  The shawl collar was unbearable even in the very cold office I was working in when I knitted it.

For months, the plan has been to re-invent this sweater.  Now that I have time on my hands where I am severely limiting my sock knitting hours, I decided to pull it back.  I pulled off the collar at home and was planning to surgically remove the upper part of the sweater for re-knitting to fix the width before doing a narrower simpler button band. 

I left the body intact so I had something to do instead of knitting at Knitting last night.  I was chatting about the fit problem and FrazzeledKnitter asked how I planned to close the sweater.  I had not quite decided but knew it had to be narrow because without the band, the sweater was almost perfect.  4 stitches, an inch, off either sweater front was all that was between me and a perfect fitting front.  

And then she said, 'why not put in a zipper?'  

It took me a second to process what she said.  I had such a complete picture of this sweater in my head from the start.  Wide collar, short sleeves, silvery buttons.  It was finished in my head before I started knitting it.  I never really formed a picture of what it would be without the shawl collar.  I just knew it had to change because the collar was too darn warm.  

The idea was brilliant.  It solves both the closure problem and the width problem in one fell swoop and it means I don't have to re-knit half of my sweater. It means the collar yarn and the 3 leftover balls can go to the bottom to make it the perfect length.  Or I can add the 3 balls to the bottom and use the collar yarn to make the sleeves just the tiniest bit longer so that the ribbing doesn't flip up as easily.  

I can turn back the excess width and use it to create a nice finished edge and facing fabric for zipper installation.  I could even steek off some of the width if I wanted too and then install the zipper!

My eyes have been opened and all of a sudden. There it sits.  A vision of what this sweater will be right there in front of my eyes.

That is the thing about the way we think isn't it?  That sometimes we (meaning me) can be stuck in a rut on one path, that our imagination fails to see what is sitting right there before our eyes.  

And that is why I go to Knitting Groups.  It helps me to see the world with more open eyes.

Speaking of worlds and open eyes, if you are praying people, you can certainly pray for Ukraine and we would be glad of it.  But because they really need more than praying people, please also contact your local MP, your senator, your whoever in your federal level of government and advocate that the western world do more than we are right now, and put pressure in the right places.  

I worry for them.  And for us.

Ugggh

I had been knitting for about 8 - 10 hours per day getting the socks done, one great sockapalooza of sock knitting before I went to work. It was wonderful.The end of any big run has to come sooner or later.  Mine finally came.  About 3 p.m. my hands gave out. 

I got half of the second sock done and then it was time to stop or do serious injury.  I will be taking it easy today on the knitting front.  

I picked up the sock this morning and knit a couple rounds just to take the edge off and that is when I noticed it.  My patterning for the first sock was 3 rounds of white alternated with 3 rounds of blue before I did the second taupe stripe.  

I was knitting white.  It ought to have been taupe.  Drat.  

Oh well, it just means more knitting and that isn't a bad thing, now is it.  

More socks

Gosh darn it I am having fun.  Every time I dig in the big bag of bits, I find more combinations that will make nice pairs.  I am also finding that I need less yarn than I think to make a pair, so I can peel out particular lovely colour choices that just make me happy.

That is what happened with this sock.

I started looking seriously at the bin of mostly cotton sock yarns the other day.  Most of the colours remind me of jeans and denim, one range has orange and red with blues or greens and denim stripes and the other, a mottled all over print.  I also had this huge ball of a wool and bamboo Trekking sock yarn that I really wanted to use up.  There was a lot of yarn, far too much for a single pair of socks.

I had started by knitting the toe patch (garter square toe), with a yarn that had deep denim colours, meaning to just mix it up.  Nest up, I popped in a stripe of the pretty light blue colour.  There was a lot of this light blue.  I realized just how much as I was working.  Along with the sandy yarn in the same mottled print and the big ball of white sock yarn with bamboo and wool, there would be more than enough for a pair of socks. Plenty. I put the striped denim bits away and went with what worked.  

I have to say, I love these.  There is something about the crisp white beside that pastel blue that just makes me happy.  It just makes the most pleasing end.  Now that sock one is done, 

I realize that it would have been even better, if I had popped the taupe in a little differently, either as a couple of rows in between the white bands, or something, but oh well.  Too late now.  But I do love these.  They are our winters snow.  Crisp with a sad and sorry bit of brown from all the warm weather we had this winter, with a fresh topper of snow that means it all looks right again.  It is the story of this winter in one sock. Me like.

I was thinking I ought to post a few more technical details about what I am doing as I make these socks.  So here are some details! 

I am using a doubled join to make the yarn changes crisp and clean and to cut down on the amount of end weaving that needs to be done later.  The link should take you to a post about a doubled join technique which, as you can see, means the only finishing needed is to snip of the ends for a quick clean finish.  And unless your feet are really, really sensitive, (most aren't) you will not feel that little bit of doubled, particularly if you place the join part on the side of your foot.     

The yarns used for this pair are two colours of Meilenweit Cotton Fun, a blend of wool, cotton, and nylon and crisp white of Trekking XL, a bamboo, wool and nylon blend.  

Still having fun.  Still loving knitting on socks.  Making fantastic headways on getting the big bag of bits to be a not so big bag of bits!

Holiday weekends

Thursday was a busy day last week, and Friday I came home determined to spend some serious time knitting.  

And I did.

One pair of completed Monster Socks.  I really really enjoyed this pair.  I just couldn't put them down.  There is something about the strong contrasts with the base of dark grays.  

As I was working on them at knitting group the other day, I idly wondered why I am enjoying this process so much.  One of the much smarter knitter's there, said it is where I am and what I am doing that probably is driving it.  I suppose it is.  

I pack a little every day, or at least I think about packing.  I spend a lot of time trying to clear up so I can move forward and I am trying to take the bits and pieces and put them together to make a new whole. I hope the new that gets built is a nice as these socks are.  I guess that clearing up the old isn't a bad thing.

But there were charming new things being knit too.  One of my sons friends had a little baby girl a while ago and the shower for the new family was this weekend.  It gave me the chance to knit a little something sweet for them.

 Aviatrix by Justine Turner made in my single ball of Lang Merino Seta in the softest sweetest baby pink.  Bonus points for there being just enough yarn left to make a second hat.  The remainder of this yarn will go back into the precious things spot and will be used down the road.  

There is another sock started this morning and I am going to go watch a little tv and knit and sip my coffee.  I have nowhere to be today and nothing much to do so I will take what I hope will be my last mostly unemployed days and relax and enjoy them.

How I spent my Thursday

I woke late in the morning, but that was due to a decidedly odd sleep.  I would sleep, wake, sleep, wake, and finally watched almost a whole movie in the middle of the night before I could sleep again.  I suspect it is some stress from waiting for the job to start. (The same thing happened last night.  I obviously need to knit more today and do nothing else!)

With the late start, playing with my Sweet Thing yesterday was shortened.  She is growing up so fast and has an adorably quirky sense of humour.

Here she is playing she is mommy on the computer.  She knows she is not supposed to be at the computer, but she sneaks in a little of this everyday.  

Then I managed to meet a sister in law for lunch. We arranged it so we could have a good long lunch by meeting at the seriously fine food place right next to the yarn store.  Fife and Dekel is a place not to be missed when you are looking for great places to lunch in Edmonton.  And yes, you want to make sure you have room for pie.

Well and then there was that part of one being right beside the yarn store.  A very short walk to my work of the afternoon.

I filled in for them for staff that was on vacation a few times over the last few weeks.  Just a few hours here and there, and it has been so much fun.  How lovely to talk about yarn with my people again.  

It has also been wonderful to be on the cusp of the new things as they arrive at the store, and believe me, there is new stuff coming in all the time.

Yesterday was book day.  A huge shipment came in with some great crochet books, reference texts, and this.

150 Scandinavian Motifs by Mary Jane Mucklestone .  I first saw this book at Interweave Knitlab last November, and knew that I would get it.  There wasn't any rush.  This is the kind of book that will be around for a good long time.

It's classic.  Instructions enough to get a good feel for how to make the designs work in your knitting,  a few projects to practise the colourwork, but just a few basic projects, a full colour directory showing all the motifs in the book, and finally the catalogue of motifs fully charted, in colour, with full colour photos of the samples and alternate colourway charts of most.  

It isn't going to include every motif used out there.  I don't think there is any such thing as a 'definitive' dictionary of motifs.  Knitting is a living craft and there is always new stuff within the framework of the knit stitch but this book is a really great start.  It gives you a really great selection of designs and talks just enough about how to combine them, and how to use them to start making your own imagination come alive to the possibilities.  

I like that in a book.  Books have always made my imagination come alive and I can travel the world in my imagination in a knitting book, just as easily as I can travel it in a novel.  

I have Mary Jane's 200 Fair Isle Motif's

as well.  The pair is a seriously great addition to any knitting library.  

So now, at least for a couple of hours, I have something lovely and new to read and I don't have to dig into boxes and under piles to find just the book my eyes want to see.  Its right here!  

Time for a coffee, and a pair of socks to knit on, and I am going to sit a spell, and do just that.  It was a great Thursday and Friday is looking pretty darn good too.

Rolling on to Sockland

 Isn't it wonderful when a thing is finished?  I love this part.  Socks are wonderfully gratifying.  These even more so, because they are scraps.  I wove the ends in as I went so that isn't a problem.  there only needs to be a tiny bit of judicious snipping of ends and weaving the end of the cast off in.  But I consider these done.  Well, substantially complete to use the technical construction term for 'pay me now'.

I left heels out of the mix as I was knitting so that I could position the heel in the middle of one of the 7 row sections but I might just leave it as is and go with tube socks.  I do have just enough of the various yarns that a heel is possible in either the dark green or the mixed skein.  This task and the decision on heels is going to wait for one big finishing day.

I did get the next set of yarns ready for socks.  Started the toe too.

These are going to be similar to the socks above because I am going to use 7 rows per colour section.  I am not sure why this works so well for me.  I think 7 is somewhere just after 'gee I've been working this yarn for a while now' and just before 'oh heavens I am bored to tears'.  I almost always recognize when I have the 5th row complete.  5 rows say time to count, so I do.  6 just isn't quite wide enough but 7?  Well, 7 says practically perfect in every way.

The one bright colour is just for a little punch and I am going to choose and then follow a sequence for the colours.  The plan is to end off with a bright row and cap it with a dark colour.

Its a good plan...but plans are sometimes best laid and then played with!  We shall see what happens once it hits the needles!

Here in Sockland

Here in Sockland ...why yes, I am pretty busy knitting socks.

I spent the morning yesterday doing errands, and the afternoon with my knit groups.  As ever, knitting in a group means sock knitting for me.  I debated about tossing in the yellow stripey sock, but I stood my ground with myself and worked on the green and orange pair.

I doubled the second sock in length.  They have decided to be fraternal socks though I was kind of looking forward to being all matchy matchy like the black pair.  There were two knots in the yarn, about 5 metres apart, that took out a rust coloured section and a large part of the green section.  I was surprised on finding knots.  That has been pretty rare in my experience with sock yarn, with all yarn really, but c'est le vie.  I knew the game was up and I am just knitting and not worrying about what is coming next.  Fraternal is good too.  I am going to focus on getting this sock done today.

I also realized that I have to deal with this.

For the life of me, I cannot say why I did not weave the ends in as I worked.  I did on the green pair.  Kind of stupid if I may say so myself.

So there is progress on the sock front here in Sockland, but I am ever watchful for the stupid.  This is me, and oh, it regularly rears it goofy head.

  

Ever have a day where you knew you really had to get some stuff done but would rather do almost anything but that...so you spent you time on Ravelry and other places looking at Nieblings?

Yeah.  I have to go digging in my book boxes.  I miss my knitting books.

In the meantime, check out these.  (A non Ravelry link for those who are non ravelrs like my sisters.)

See what I mean.  Couldn't stop looking could you.

I get that.  I get the pictures from blogs, from lace websites, from places all over the world.  

What I don't get is the 70s Tigerbeat Spectacular with David Cassidy on the cover.  

No just really don't get that.

After Fridays busy news

After Fridays busy news, what is a person to do?  I did this.  

I started a sweater in Red Briggs and Little Regal.  We shall see how far we get before it is time to go do normal things. 

Then when my hands got tired of that, I did a little of this. This is a monstersock usng some blue from the big bag of bits and a single yellow skein from the one skein bin.

It would have made more sense to go finish the green and orange one rather than start a new one but this

wasn't right there when I needed to do something with my hands and the pretty yellow yarn and needles were.  

If I can reach it, it gets knit.  Sometimes that is the way we roll.

I forgot to post but that was a good thing!

I really did forget this morning.  I made coffee, like I usually do.  Then I went to the computer, like I usually do, and I have no idea what the heck happened after that.  And then it was time to play with baby, and then I got a job...

YUP!  After several many interviews, well not really that many, 4 with the actual employer, I landed a nice job and I am thrilled.  Unfortunately, it is on the far side of the city so it will be a long commute for a few months, but I know how it goes.  That long commute never really is that long in the end.  There are always books on cd to listen to and podcasts to download and hear.  

And then 10 minutes after that, news that my mortgage is almost resolved!  

It was a very very good day, even if I did start a little sluggish in the memory department.

When Knitting Attacks.

Remember that long cast one I did?  I haven't knit on it in a while.  It still is only an inch long and an inch isn't going to cut it.  Part of the reason I have been avoiding it is that it has a problem.  It is at that stage and after all that hard work...I hate this part of knitting.

Because I wanted a bottom hem to match the finishing on the neckline and wrists, and because the finish is i cord which is perpendicular to the rest of the stitches, row gauge is a problem.  And I did not make an allowance for it.  

It blouses.  It blouses and poufs even with one measly inch of knitting.  Imagine this once 6 inches is knit, once the body is knit.  Imagine that sad little too short row of i cord pulling everything in right where it absolutely must flow and drape.  

Yeah.  You know what I am doing this morning.  Ripping back.  We will see about restarting.  I might just work on a different sweater. 

It sure was a nice i cord.  I will always have that.  

Please note:  

The blog title is stolen directly from the source, the Knitmore Girls Podcast, which if you still have not listened to, you ought.

Cold to the Bone

I was chilled yesterday, to the bone cold and I could not seem to warm up.  I was sitting in front of a heater at the time, but it didn't seem to help.  On the shelf in front of me was this sweater.

Brian wore it a few times watching TV.  He said it was too hot for anything else.  He took it camping and a large spark flew to where it lay on a chair, and burned through it in several spots.  It lay on the shelf waiting for repair ever since. 

I debated tossing it, but it, oy, all that work.  That seemed like such a waste.  I thought about recovering what good wool I could.  The arms, the body below the armpits.  These were good.  It was only the top that would have been scrappy and largely unrecoverable.  I just never got round to that.  It stayed on the shelf and waited.

I was cold, so I put it on.  It became apparent pretty fast, that if I was going to wear it even a little, I had to do something. The holes made the knitting very unstable.  

So I pulled out the left over yarn from making the sweater and did some quick and dirty repairs.  

The two spots which were just singed were repaired with a little judicious duplicate stitch.  I can see one more row needs work in the second picture.

The other two were big.  Great big.     

Like I said.  Big.

I was never sure what I was going to do with those.  I often thought the only repair would have been to knit a patch leaving long ends at the end of each row, that could be woven into the fabric.  And yes that would work, but the idea seems pretty daunting.  

And that is why it sat on the shelf.

Anyway, after repairing the socks, I thought in for a penny, in for a pound and did these.

 The first, fell conveniently between two sections of garter stitch and the patch fit comfortably along the edge of the sleeve seam.  It fits pretty well and I am, more or less pleased with it.

 the garter stitch patch worked less well.  I needed to pick up stitches to start a row lower than I did so that the garter stitch worked better on the right side, and I needed to do and extra row of garter stitch.  Plus, I forgot to do a  purl rather than a knit two together at the one side for those garter rows.  And then to finish off, I made the graft too tight.

So many flaws, but the knitting is stable and the sweater is once again, usable.

I am warm and am cozy wrapped in the memories of summer camping. That counts for something in the middle of a Canadian winter.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

That space between

It never seems to matter how big a project is, there is always that space after you finished that feels empty.  It isn't that there are not dozens of things ongoing, but you sit there for a moment and you have to decide what your fingers feel like working on.

Mine decided to play and if you go back, you will see what I was playing with on Saturday.  

Sunday morning, I realized that there I sat,

two socks but no new pair in sight.  

I have been there before but this just doesn't make sense when I think about the state of my sock drawer.  I could really use a few pairs of socks.   

Sunday I addressed that.

Sock two, well under way, almost to the cuff. I do have a fair bit of the striped yarn left but am just going to have enough of the black to finish the cuff.  

After I get done the red section knit on sock two, I think I am going to pull the rest of the striped ball apart and see if there are two sections of of any one  colour remaining.  I normally wouldn't worry about that, but up until now, the universe has decided that these socks will match.  If the universe is unfolding that way, who am I to make waves?  The cuffs are tennis cuff short right now and it would be a waste not to make them longer if I can.  

Besides, after playing in the bag of bits, why add back into it?

My Spidey Senses!

What was once a plain red and blue sock

Became an inspired by interpretation of the original and honour must go to the lady who thought up, Teri Frid and her 'Even Big Guys Love Spidey Socks' pattern.  Without these, it wouldn't have happened.

Because I wasn't keen on stranding and the extra warmth that usually means, for hot sticky little boy feet, I choose to do duplicate stitch.  While it wasn't a bad idea, there were moments where I questioned my sanity.  It took much longer to get into the rhythm of the embroidery than I thought.  

I started with the long uprights.

That gave me a nice clear picture of what I was working the rest of the design into.  I did not duplicate stitch these, but choose to crochet up the foot around a stitch from the knitted fabric.

Then, it was a matter of embroidering the swags between the uprights, following Terri's charts.  Well, almost following the charts. My stitch count was different.

And voila.  A practically perfect pair of Spidey socks. 

With a single imperfect spider like creature on the back.  Good to go.  

I am so very pleased with these.  Perfect for my special little boy.

It is funny the way it works

It's funny the way the world works, how one thing leads seamlessly into another and the hints and flavours of everything that has gone before is to be found within it.

I've been feeling a little down lately.  That is nothing new.  Some of it is the place of life, the place of grief that I am in and some is just the stress from searching for work.  These are all to be expected.  

As I was driving home today, I caught the end of Ben Heppner's Opera Gems on CBC Radio 2.  (Not a big opera fan, but probably because I am not familiar with the genre but I digress) It just happened to be what was playing on the radio.  I caught the tail of something pretty and then heard what I have always felt is the loveliest of songs.  

  Perhaps love is like a resting place

A shelter from the storm

It exists to give you comfort

It is there to keep you warm

And in those times of trouble

When you are most alone

The memory of love will bring you home 

I felt better.  It cannot be that bad because I have the memories and they will carry me, if I let them.  When I got home, I sat down to knit.  

I am having such a good time with the black and mixed colours socks.  I am really, really enjoying knitting that way, putting colours in here and there, punching up what is already a very nice colour mix.  

It made me wonder what magic could be had in my big bag of bits. 

One great big bag.  Did I mention how big it is?  It is so big that it doesn't want to fit anything and I don't want to give it the dignity of its own private stash box just yet. I pulled out the bag and the boxes and decided to see what treasures I could find among them.

It is a really big bag.  I pulled out a few and laid them out along with a few skeins of yarn that work with them. 

It is lovely and I am having just the best time.  

As I knit, I started thinking about how much I needed to hear that song and how glad I was that it just popped up when I so needed it.  It struck me that these socks are the perfect knitting for this time in my world.  

They are made of bits and pieces of sock knitting from long ago socks.   There isn't enough there to make a pair from any one of them, but mixed together they make a pair and a darn good looking pair too.  Good looking yet serviceable, plain stockinette socks.  Eminently ordinary and more glorious because of it.  

I suspect this part of life is going to be like that.  Taking strands from the past, where there isn't enough of any one to make something, and weaving them into my future, making an eminently ordinary but I hope very good life.

Its funny the way things work together.