It’s like a Cher song

Dr Seuss said “How did it get so late so soon?” and that my dear readers, sums up my feelings about this year so far. I cannot name a single thing that is on track so far, I feel behind on everything I’m trying to do – Joe finally arrived home from out west after three weeks away, and I was so looking forward to being back on track when he came down with norovirus. (I refuse to capitalize it to make my lack of respect clear.) I’m barely over the last thing I had so I have washed my hands until they’re sandpaper and mopped down the bathroom 87 times a day and slept in another room while muttering “not today Satan” under my breath and so far, so good. He’s well on the mend now so I feel like I might have dodged it, but honestly it’s enough of a mess over here that I this week I’m going to have to drop a few plans out of my queue and prioritize only the things that really matter. Case in point, I have completely let go of any plan to clean anything and am knitting this baby blanket like it’s a job. (Well, except for my jobs and setting up the Spring Retreat, there’s one or two spots left I think if you want to hang out IRL.)

I have two baby blankets to knit in the next little bit and if I had my way I’d be on the final edging for the second one, rather than starting the second border. (I have half a mind to let all the parents know what I think of babies that arrive back to back and so soon after Christmas, but I like babies too much to complain properly or with any kind of heart. This one’s for friends of ours and the next for my niece – no more grandbabies yet.) I’ve knit the centre and a garter border, then a little border and the first big one – today I start the second big border and garter section, then there’s a little one and another garter section and then bingo, I start the edging.

Pattern: mine Yarn: Juniper Moon Pategonia

It never ceases to surprise me how slowly this part goes. It seems like it should be so fast – the part I just completed is only 12cm deep and holding the work in my hands it’s pretty demoralizing that it took days, but really, each round went all the way, well… round, and that means that I added 12cm on each side, for a total of 48cm knit, and that means the blanket is now almost a half metre bigger and that’s a load of knitting and no surprise that it took a few days. Ellie is here for the weekend and although he’s a knitter he doesn’t want to spend hours and hours and hours at it, so we will see how far I get. (Abigail is here this evening and her focus in the area of the textile arts is pulling needles out of knitting, so I can’t imagine I’ll make good time then either.)

When I’m not working on the blanket, I’m working on my Self-Imposed-Sock-Club. The plan is 10 rounds a day on each sock each day- and last year that churned out 12 pairs of socks quite handily. I bagged up 12 patterns I want to knit and 12 skeins of yarn that I want to use and matched them up, stuck them in brown paper bags stapled them shut, mixed them around so I don’t know what’s in what bag, and put them on a shelf in my office. (I then instantaneously forgot what was in the bags, thus making it ridiculous that I’d mixed them up to try and fool myself.) The idea is that I pull down a bag each month but I got a late start in January and the rest of the month was on fire and there’s this big blanket and …

Pattern: mine Yarn: Must Stash: Space Wizard

I’m not done yet. I need to knit the toes on these, and then go back and put in the heels. It’s a forethought heel, I put a little waste yarn in where the heel goes, and I’ll pull that out, collect the stitches and bob’s yer uncle. Sounds fast, right? We’ll see how quickly I get there – It’s pretty motivating to think about what might be in the next bag I pull down and I can’t do that until I finish these – I wonder if this is less fun if you have the kind of memory that would let you have any idea whatsoever what is in those bags- my memory being what it is means that the SISC (Self Imposed Sock Club) is a complete mystery and a surprise, just like it was being mailed to me every month.

Off I go. Someone has to knit those toes – and hide my knitting from Abigail. (Let me know if it’s you. I’ll work on the blanket.)