Another day of contumely and handbells

 

The day did not start well.*  What with one thing and another the ME has been giving me more hell than usual and I tottered after the hellhounds this morning having to remind myself to pick up each foot sequentially . . . it's a good thing I don't have four to keep track of.  I don't know how quadrupeds do it.  Bigger brains, I suppose.  When I turned my computer on I discovered a forty percent off yarn sale in my inbox.**  And I've just had another of those developments in PEG II that remind me that I wanted to be an exobiologist.*** 

            And Thursday is handbell practise.  Moan.  So I emailed Niall if he knew whether Caitlin was coming or not—we have officially despaired of Fernanda† and are attempting to lure Caitlin into our Thursday evening clutches—because I had been making a half-hearted attempt to remember what I used to know with Pooka's assistance and not getting too far, and if I knew if I was focussing on minor (three pairs of hands) or major (four pairs of hands) that would help.  Three pairs, Niall wrote back.  Bob minor, he added, St Clements, Kent and one lead of Cambridge.††  AAAAAAAAAAAUGH.†††  Niall has Cambridge on the brain.  All right, wait, I thought.  Don't panic!  Don't panic!  We are bumbling through St Clements.  I can (probably) bumble through it again.  Kent?  Where has he got the idea that I can ring Kent on handbells?  Which leaves . . . Cambridge.  One lead of Cambridge.  Hmmmmm. . . .

            So, knowing perfectly well what one lead of Cambridge leads to‡ I shut PEG II back in its folder again‡‡ and settled down with a recently recharged Pooka to attempt to hammer one lead of Cambridge into my collapsed-soufflé brain before 5 pm.  And . . . it was not a thing of beauty, our first lead of Cambridge, but it was recognisable . . . even if it did lead to . . . a second lead.  Which was pretty frelling dire.  Which of course now I have to learn for next week.‡‡‡  And relearn St Clements which was inevitably rather derailed by the Cambridge.§

            So with a brain now resembling badly scrambled eggs I thought I'd fluff out the rest of this blog with a steal or two from the forum.  And then maybe I'll knit a few rows and go to bed.

PamAdams wrote: 

…. the prospect of trying to make a rectangle out of my non-squares scares me



Remember, it's a dog blanket. I have yet to meet the hell-hound, hell-terrier, or any other hell-dog type that cared if the blanket was square, round, or trapezoidal, as long as it could be squished up comfortably for sleeping purposes.

Yo.  I've been saying from the beginning—and said again last night—THE HELLHOUNDS WON'T MIND—about anything at all, as long as it's sleepable, hence in their case acrylic§§.  I was perhaps insufficiently explicit last night:  the point is that my squares are not square nor any other regular geometric shape and are therefore going to be difficult to stick together in any ENTIRETY whatsoever that doesn't have lots of HOLES in it.  I'm not going to be sewing my non-squares together, I'm going to be darning them together.  Arrrgh.

blondviolinist wrote: 

Oh, my goodness! So many squares! I knew you'd been knitting, but… wow, you HAVE been knitting!

::Preens::  . . . well, sort of nervously preens.  This is one of those occasions when the camera lies rather, um, magnificently.  You can't really tell, even if you blow up the photos, how blerg-ridden most of those squares are, even if it's pretty visible that they're not square.  There's like one—maybe—that doesn't have at least one blerg or gleep in it, and most of them have many.  Is this a stage I'm going to grow out of or had I better start adapting my view of my knitting future§§§ to very simple projects in multi-colour blends and biggish gauge that will disguise the blergs better?  I am improving just . . .  not very fast.  And the hellhound squares, which are in fatter yarn [fewer stitches to the inch/cm], are improving faster than the Secret Project squares, which are in finer, more delicate yarn . . . GAAAAAAAAAAH what a mistake that was.  My only comfort is that the eventual recipient does have a good sense of humour.  Whether she has a good enough sense of humour remains to be seen. 

Re: "squares" of variable squareness: When the time comes to stitch them all together, you can sort them by height, and put squares of similar height into the same rows.

Yes, I'd got that far, and in fact have started tentatively experimenting with different numbers of stitches and rows to see if there's something that in my hands would come out more or less square most of the time.  It's the ski-slope and ice-cream-cone shaped ones I'm worrying about. . . . Part of the problem with my output is that I discovered really fast that knitting is (a) soothing and (b) makes you feel that you're doing something useful when the ME is bad.  This means I'm liable to be knitting under stress# and/or when I have no discernable brain function.  The results are predictable. . . . 

* * *

* Speaking of things not going right, we need rain.  HEY, YOU GUYS UP THERE.  WE NEED RAIN.  The bluebells are going to go over before they finish coming out if we don't get some rain soon.  We were supposed to get some azalea-crushing downpours the last two days.  I'm grateful for the uncrushed azaleas, but I'm not grateful for being out there with watering-cans, and there's nobody with a very, very large tanker truck and very long hosepipe to water the wild bluebells.   

** Yes.  No.  But I still have my shopping basket open and I go look at it occasionally. 

*** This is actually true.  I was high on having done really well in track one biology, and had been marked for life by the original STAR TREK in junior high.  In my saner moments I wanted to be a vet.  In my saner moments I knew I'd never get into vet school.  

† Last unverified sighting was of firing a cannon over the bows of a Spanish galleon in the Bay of Biscay. 

†† Emphasis mine.  

††† Screaming also mine. 

‡ Another lead of Cambridge.  And another lead after that.  And . . . 

‡‡ I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too^ 

^ And remember how that ended 

‡‡‡ If you find you have a little extra time, says Niall, please feel free to learn the third lead. 

§ I have a small brain.  I can only stay apprised of two feet at a time.  And one handbell method. 

§§  This despite Elizabeth Zimmermann, who is possibly the original Knitting Goddess for the current generation(s), who feels that all knitting begins and ends with wool and anyone who is allergic to it has merely been managed badly.  Stick it in your ear, Lizzie, honey.  PS:  Sheep aren't silly [another Zimmermann proclamation].  They can be made silly if they are managed badly.  

§§§ For example that open shopping basket I haven't bought the contents of yet? 

# As for example when my husband is in A&E waiting to have his head injury looked at