I'm still here

I don't know if it's seasonal or sweateral, or the root canal I had a week ago, but I've just been too blue to blog.

I've taken this sweater front to this point


at least three times, and the Curse of the Yarn Over continues to plague me. For those of you who think I'm just being weirdly obsessive, look! It so shows. Ripping doesn't bother me, as a general rule, but I'm about to reach my limit.


You know what? I know I'm reasonably intelligent, and I know that this is a simple (like falling off of a log simple) lace pattern. Yet I've redone and redone and redone this yoke until I'm afraid I'm going to fray the yarn. This is supposed to be my easy, take everywhere project, and I'm turning it into Rip Our Your Hair central.

And, dang it, I want this sweater. It's soft, it's drapey, I can just imagine it snuggled over a tank keeping the freezing summer breezes of the bay area off of me. Arrrrgh.

Last night I sat down and did a few rows, checking carefully every single time, and when I found a mistake, I declared it bedtime.

Jen, you and your spouse are welcome to come and get the tour. It won't take long and I'll let you guys gather eggs and smoke the bees and see if you can find the queen. On second thought, maybe you should wait until you've really decided about children. Mine can have, um, effects on that decision. Both good and bad, I hasten to add. For instance, if you saw this:

You might think you wanted a lot. Since our wonderful friend came over and taught her, I figured I was set for yarn for the rest of my life. She started asking about planting a dyer's
garden. But then Andrew went away, and many tears were shed. Do any of you know how to avoid over-twisting the roving before it gets pulled onto the flyer? We're ruining gobs of fiber trying to learn how to draft and hold it and ye gods it's frustrating. And you can so stop snickering, Jen, it is too really hard. I'm still in awe of Those Who Can.

And anyhow, after a day of doing some work (I teach online college classes) and some kids and some gardening -- mostly battling the evil incarnate Bermuda grass invading every part of my all of 6,000 square foot lot -- and some cleaning and not running, alas, and some knitting ripping, well, I haven't felt like I had much to say. I'm a little better now.

So some garden pics just for fun. Feel free to go elsewhere if you're not thrilled by unusually badly aligned plant closeups!









If you got this far, you can probably guess that I love fancy lettuce (those were Freckles or Amish Speckles, Little Gem Romaine, Red Oak Leaf, and maybe Lollo Rosso -- I lose track, but they're tasty), that we're going to have tomatoes soon, that if Thing 2 doesn't eat them all before they ripen, we may get one plum and some raspberries, and the chickens are wondering about when the grapes will come due.

So now I'm thinking about Yarnmonkey's Knitting World Cup, since soccer rules supreme here, and what I'm going to knit. I do know one thing.

No yarn overs.

Added later: It appears I've been channeling the good folks at Rowan. Look at this! Seed stitch borders? Check. Flower embellishment? Check. Adorable baby girl? Check. Either great minds, you know, or I'm susceptible to some forces out in the universe that guide pattern choices. I've not seen this picture before tonight. Weird.