That twisted thing

I did virtually no knitting yesterday.  But I will tell you that I spent my day with knitters doing non knitterly things and I know just how much those things were appreciated.

So, today I will catch up on my sweater.

This Shalom is moving along nicely.  I am very pleased with the way the Felicity, a much more expensive yarn is working with the much less expensive yarn, Patons Classic Wool.  I have just a wee bit, maybe 3 or 4 rows, possibly not even that much, to go before splitting off for the arms.  I have knit several Shaloms, two for me, and one for Cassandra, and this one for me is going to feature long sleeves.

On a regular shalom, stitches are cast off after the third set of twisted ribs, but sleeves for me, mean there has to be a bit more yoke knitting and indeed another set of increases to make it work.  Or at least I think so.  Man I hope so, otherwise I am going to have a problem.  Those things are done and I am almost ready for the debate, sleeves, now or sleeves later.  I honestly do not have any idea yet which way I am going to go.

What I can tell you, is that I have made some decisions about what else this sweater is going to feature.  I had 3 full skeins of the Felicity and I adore the colours, though the strong gold and oranges  are not colours that are usually quite right for me.  Because I have so much of it, I think there will be bands of colour at the hem and at the sleeve cuffs

I know that 'they' whoever they are, say that you should not put a feature where your body is the widest, but you know what?  I'm feeling a mite cranky.  Who cares what 'they' think.  If looking good is connected to feeling good, imagine how wonderful I am going to feel when I am sitting down with my sweater on, some random day in the future and I sit, admiring these lovely hand dyed colours.  Imagine what punches of colour flashing at the cuffs, each time I raise my arm to do something as I go about my day will feel like on a dark winter day.

The sweater is going to be more of a tunic length sweater.  It is being constructed as a cardigan, but I can already tell you that it is going to be sewn together to be worn as a pullover midway down the yoke.  It is also going to be open below my middle so that it wears and looks like a cardigan without actually being a cardigan.  What can I say.  I like cardigans, but I always wear them closed but for day to day wear, I most appreciate pullovers.  Go with what works without fuss.  So cardigan that isn't a cardian.

I am going to close off today with music that means much to me.  Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. 

This music is such a statement of the human condition.  It describes a loss of innocence so completely that all who hear it know it, beyond culture, beyond language.  It feels like every soul in crisis.

I need to say to the world at large, today more than most, there is so much more. It is easy to feel that your heart will never come out of the sorrow Barber describes, but there is so much more.  And it isn't even so simple as that your soul will ever come out of sorrow, more that you adapt to it but there is so much more.  Just know that there is so much more.  Because Vivaldi.