Sunday morning, with knitting (and a little complaining)

Even when it's my day off, even when I don't need to get up early, I find myself up anyway. I'm just a morning person, and I always have been. Believe me, I've tried to be a night owl, but it's just not in me. But while most people were still snoozing away this morning, I was treated to this:

Olympic training continues. In fact, I believe I have acheived a perfect swatch. It makes me very glad that I decided to rethink and redesign a sweater for this yarn. My challenge is not only to finish knitting it, but to create a sweater that I'll love, and -- here's a concept -- maybe even wear.

• Yarn: Manos del Uruguay Color 113, Wildflowers
• Needles: US 8 (5mm)
• Stockinette, with seed stitch borders
• Looks like 4.65 stitches to the inch!

Does your monitor express the lovely similarities between the sunrise and the swatch? Mine does.

~:~

Now I have another big decision to make. Do I join Team Chocolate? Or Team Caffeine? Or both, and I can have chocolate-covered espresso beans?

Knitting, thinking about knitting, and reading about knitting has kept me from going insane this week. Pulling book returns is mentally and physically draining, and it took me almost all week to figure out why I've been coming home so tired. It's almost done, though. That is, until next month.

I finished the little Kimono Angora scarf in just a few days. I like the way the colors arranged themselves across the surface (pardon the dim photo -- right after the sunrise, the clouds thickened). It's really soft and light, too.

• Yarn: Louisa Harding Kimono Angora, color number 1
• Pattern: My own, with picot cast-on and -off, garter edges, and K2P2 ribbing
• Needles: US 8 (5mm) for edges, 7 (4.5mm) for ribbing

And since I promised a little complaining: I'd like to be able to say that I've devoted half of my knitting time to the Jaywalkers, but I can't. I'd rather knit just about anything else. It's not the pattern -- it's well-written, not complicated, and I know it works. I'm just not enjoying it, and my sock shows it. It's lumpy and misshapen and forlorn. Is it just me?

Knitting will return after a short break...

This little panda, this little boy named Tai Shan, is simply the cutest creature on the planet. He's even cuter than Annabelle (she can't read, so she won't know I said this). I've mentioned him before, but this is a more recent photo. Real-time video plays on my office computer all day long, so I am treated to his antics -- and even his naps -- while I am waiting for orders to go through or reports to process or other bookstore stuff to happen. I've put the link to the National Zoo website on the sidebar so that you, too might stop by and enjoy the boy.

Now back to the knitting (no pictures, though). I might -- just might -- have turned a corner on the Jaywalker thing. Either that, or I've gone round the bend. I think the one I'm making now will work, so I'm going to dedicate thirty minutes out of every knitting hour to finishing the pair. Don't anybody hold me to that, but maybe if I make this public declaration, my fear of failure will overcome my desire to knit something -- anything -- else. Cara needs to give me one of those head-butting smileys, though. I deserve one.

My little scarf diversion looks about like it did the other day, only much longer. It's a soft, pretty little thing, and just what I envisioned. When it's off the needles and has been washed and blocked, I'll take another picture. I do like the yarn, and I think it would be beautiful knit up into something larger.

Today, which is my day off, I am going to pull out all the Wildflower Manos, wind it into balls, and get it ready to become an Olympic Sweater. That will be enough training for one day, I think. One has to be careful to build one's stamina over time, dontcha know. That, along with carbo-loading, is a given.

Margene posted about another interesting creative join-along thing, and once I read about it I signed right up. It's Lolly's Project Spectrum. I love the idea, and I can't wait to begin planning color-themed projects -- knitted, spun, painted, or whatever. It is a wonderful thing to be conscious of all the ways we are creative in our daily lives, and of all the little detours we can take on our path that will bring us creative joy and satisfaction. J gave me a poster once (hi, J!), with a quote from Proust: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." I think I have been coming to that conclusion for a while now. It's funny, but when she gave me that poster all those years ago, I think I was on a similar journey. Different Jane, perhaps.

Now, let me go and try to see those Jaywalkers with some new eyes. Maybe that will help.

B-ing

B is for Bandelier.

(An afternoon in late April, 1989. This photograph is faded and the color is off, but it's there, the magic is there.)

V and I had an adventure in New Mexico that Spring (my first real travel adventure, really). We stayed with friends in Albuquerque and set out each morning to explore. Was this the day we went to Jemez, too? I think so. We were just remembering our visit to Jemez: how the place was almost too powerful; how V painted but made me stay away so I couldn't see her picture (shy thing, back then); how we would love to return some time.

Anyway, we got to Bandelier somehow, having stopped every once in a while to marvel or cry or both. I was overwhelmed at every turn in the road, having lived most of my life in the green, rolling terrain of Maryland and Virginia. To see the whole dome of the sky, and the curve of the earth -- Oh my. It wasn't until I moved here to Long Island and saw the horizon again, and the whole sky over the ocean, that I felt anything similar.

This place, this Bandelier, held us for the rest of the day. I am trying to describe this one afternoon, but I am still at a loss for words. I can't do it. All I can say is that I was changed forever on that trail beside the Anasazi cliff dwellings, and if you have been there, you might know what I mean.

B also stands for Brave, which is what I found out I was capable of being. That week in New Mexico, though I didn't know it then, was the beginning of the journey that brought me here, to Long Island, to the life I live now, and to this very moment.

B could have been for books, too, since books are my daily life, my bread and butter -- but that would have been too easy!

So anyway...it seems that the life I live right now is about nothing but preparing for the Knitting Olympics. The initial thrill has worn off. Now it's down to the serious preparations, the real training. I'm chugging away on the New and Improved More Acceptable Jaywalkers, but they're not ready for their closeup yet. These socks will need a good wash and set before meeting their public. This week I'll begin swatching the yarn for my Olympic sweater, and then I'll be able to work out the pattern and the measurements. I'm thinking simple V-neck, modified drop sleeves (or maybe raglan, who knows?), tunic style, with short side slits and garter edging.

I'm using a little scarf project as a diversion. Clara reviewed Louisa Harding's Kimono Angora yarn last week, and I had two balls in my stash, so I decided to start this:

I'm hoping that it will become a little frou-frou thing with a slightly wavy edge when it's looped around a neck. It began as a lace scarf from the Accessories Collection book, but following any pattern with more than a two-row repeat hurts my brain right now. And don't you love my innovative needles? Where are all my size 7's, anyway? I have a Denise set for these kinds of emergencies, but this yarn sticks to plastic, so I improvised with bamboo dpn's.

Enough, now. The blue sky is calling me, and there's knitting to be done!

The training begins

I figure if I'm crazy enough to sign up for the Knitting Olympics, well, I'm crazy enough to get on a puny little ferry on a day like today. I had all sorts of stuff to do up the island, and I needed to pick up some birthday surprises for J at North Fork Stitches, so I threw caution to the wind (literally) and took the ferries back to the South Fork to save some time. Urp.

By the time I got home, though, the skies were clearing, and I was treated to this, a nice ending to the day:So I think I'll take Sandy's button, since I do seem to be doing lots of sky-watching lately.

~:~

About those Olympics...it's J's fault really, but in a good way. She called me at work the other day, and before she'd finished telling me about Stephanie's Great Idea I'd decided that sure, I can knit a whole sweater in fifteen days. It's just the kick in the rear that I need to put all that Fabulous Wildflower Manos to good use, since it's painfully clear that the sweater I was trying to force it to become just wasn't working. Besides, I love to watch the Winter Olympics, so I won't have to be anywhere I wouldn't be already.

J is going to tackle one of the two ponchos she's been planning for ages. The Perfect R's will be gone off to college or something if she doesn't get going now. And since chocolate is not considered a drug in these Olympics, and neither is wine, J is going to be a force to be reckoned with. The thing about her is, she knits beautifully, but not a lot. She's just finished two lovely scarves for her men, but it took her something like two years. Each. That she's willing to compete in the Knitting Olympics is so inspiring that I had to challenge myself to something big, too. Since I know that I can't possibly finish a lace shawl (my other big planned project for this year) I went for the sweater. At least I have a chance. And a partner in this folly, too.

I have two more socks to add to the 200Socks count -- the mates to the Woodland Twilight Garter Rib and the Lapis STR. I had a little competition with the guys at the car dealer today: could they finish my tune-up before I closed the toe on the sock? They did, but not by much.

Now I'm ready to move on and make another Jaywalker attempt. I have ankles, you see. Not regular old ankles, either. They are what they are, but they don't Jaywalk very well. I've cast on another needle size and stitch combination, and I'm sticking with it even if I end up using these socks for dusting mitts. Don't worry, Cara, I'm stubborn.

I'm thinking that this Jaywalker Knitalong is sort of like the Olympic trials or semi-finals or something. "Citius, Alitius Fortius" and all that.