Being in the right headspace
I've been working away on IzzyKnit's In the Pink in the Kauni Effektgarn I bought on my trip to Alaska. It's been a really difficult knit for me, probably because my head has just not been in the game.
I started working on it a couple of weeks ago, right after I finished my Affair in Sonata Skirt. I don't usually leave any time between projects. It's the reason I work so quickly: I usually have something else I can't wait to cast on for. This yarn has been sitting around, waiting for just the right project, and I figured I may as well just start.
This shawl is knit in pieces: centre, right front and left front. I managed to get the centre done without any trouble. I started on the right front immediately afterward, on a Friday night.
Saturday morning, the trouble started.
Hubby came in from the garden and announced that all the onions we had growing in the garden were rotting. This was just as I had discovered that I'd managed to drop a bunch of stitches, and was trying to navigate my way through the lace to pick them up. I was already upset. The onion news, well, that upset me more. I mean, when you spend hours and hours outside, working in the garden, getting bitten my zillions of mosquitoes, only to find out your work is for naught - well, you lose it a bit.
I had a bit of a tantrum.
Ok, a big one.
It turns out, only a couple of them were rotten. We (and when I say we, I mean, my husband) pulled them all out and they were fine. They're all dried and ready in boxes for use in the laundry room. The rest of the garden is ok, so far.
But it was really only the beginning.
I was still angry, unsettled, upset. I finished the right side of the shawl, after lots of stops and starts, dropped stitches, broken threads. The next day, I finished the left side in one sitting, calmer, clear-headed. Then, I put them side by side and compared them.
They looked totally different.
The left side was perfect. The right side looked like a cat got it and used it in a street fight. Well, what to do?
Frog it. Rip it, rip it, rip it.
There is much to be said for putting things down and walking away when things just aren't right, when your mind is not in a good space, and your shoulders are hunched while you clutch your project in front of your eyeballs. You know it's time to stop when your significant other asks you what a noogie is, and you look at him like you're going to singe his eyebrows off in one glance.
I'm still plugging away at this. I've made it to the edging, and I've decided that I'm going to make it a little less wide. I finally feel like my brain is able to make those calculations, but I won't hold my breath. I think I may need to have a hot bath and foot massage to truly get myself back in gear. Or a coffee. Or a nap.
It could be worse. I could be doing brain surgery.
Yesterday, we decided to head into the city and have a picnic in Glenmore Park, near where we used to live. I envisioned a relaxing day, picnicking in the sunshine, with Rascal exploring in the shady trees.
I keep forgetting the reality of summer in the city. Traffic. Dust. Haze. We spent a couple of hours crawling along the highway. Sigh.
Luckily, before we hit the traffic, we managed to get a bit of shopping done, which we'd been putting off until then. Hubby finally got some new swimming trunks and shorts. I finally got to a shop that sells my most favourite tea in the world: White Ambrosia by Tea Forte. And while I was in the shop, I spied this:
It's a manual coffee grinder. I've been looking for one for a while now, and they have been ranging anywhere from $30 to $60. This one? Only $20. Yeeeahhh. The bottom of it is a stainless steel canister, but I will likely only grind enough to make a pot at a time.
I did have an electric grinder, but it died a horrible death when I used it to grind some almonds a while back. I took it apart and tried to fix it, but yeah... no go. I figured that I could at least control the speed of this one a bit more.
So... let's not mention that I gave my coffee maker away a while back. Ahem. I'm working on it, ok?
Anyway, it's been a hard week, and yesterday was a hard day. Rascal's been feeling it, too.
Time for a nap. Let's hope this week is a bit better.
I started working on it a couple of weeks ago, right after I finished my Affair in Sonata Skirt. I don't usually leave any time between projects. It's the reason I work so quickly: I usually have something else I can't wait to cast on for. This yarn has been sitting around, waiting for just the right project, and I figured I may as well just start.
This shawl is knit in pieces: centre, right front and left front. I managed to get the centre done without any trouble. I started on the right front immediately afterward, on a Friday night.
Saturday morning, the trouble started.
Hubby came in from the garden and announced that all the onions we had growing in the garden were rotting. This was just as I had discovered that I'd managed to drop a bunch of stitches, and was trying to navigate my way through the lace to pick them up. I was already upset. The onion news, well, that upset me more. I mean, when you spend hours and hours outside, working in the garden, getting bitten my zillions of mosquitoes, only to find out your work is for naught - well, you lose it a bit.
I had a bit of a tantrum.
Ok, a big one.
It turns out, only a couple of them were rotten. We (and when I say we, I mean, my husband) pulled them all out and they were fine. They're all dried and ready in boxes for use in the laundry room. The rest of the garden is ok, so far.
But it was really only the beginning.
I was still angry, unsettled, upset. I finished the right side of the shawl, after lots of stops and starts, dropped stitches, broken threads. The next day, I finished the left side in one sitting, calmer, clear-headed. Then, I put them side by side and compared them.
They looked totally different.
The left side was perfect. The right side looked like a cat got it and used it in a street fight. Well, what to do?
Frog it. Rip it, rip it, rip it.
There is much to be said for putting things down and walking away when things just aren't right, when your mind is not in a good space, and your shoulders are hunched while you clutch your project in front of your eyeballs. You know it's time to stop when your significant other asks you what a noogie is, and you look at him like you're going to singe his eyebrows off in one glance.
I'm still plugging away at this. I've made it to the edging, and I've decided that I'm going to make it a little less wide. I finally feel like my brain is able to make those calculations, but I won't hold my breath. I think I may need to have a hot bath and foot massage to truly get myself back in gear. Or a coffee. Or a nap.
It could be worse. I could be doing brain surgery.Yesterday, we decided to head into the city and have a picnic in Glenmore Park, near where we used to live. I envisioned a relaxing day, picnicking in the sunshine, with Rascal exploring in the shady trees.
I keep forgetting the reality of summer in the city. Traffic. Dust. Haze. We spent a couple of hours crawling along the highway. Sigh.
Luckily, before we hit the traffic, we managed to get a bit of shopping done, which we'd been putting off until then. Hubby finally got some new swimming trunks and shorts. I finally got to a shop that sells my most favourite tea in the world: White Ambrosia by Tea Forte. And while I was in the shop, I spied this:
It's a manual coffee grinder. I've been looking for one for a while now, and they have been ranging anywhere from $30 to $60. This one? Only $20. Yeeeahhh. The bottom of it is a stainless steel canister, but I will likely only grind enough to make a pot at a time.I did have an electric grinder, but it died a horrible death when I used it to grind some almonds a while back. I took it apart and tried to fix it, but yeah... no go. I figured that I could at least control the speed of this one a bit more.
So... let's not mention that I gave my coffee maker away a while back. Ahem. I'm working on it, ok?
Anyway, it's been a hard week, and yesterday was a hard day. Rascal's been feeling it, too.
Time for a nap. Let's hope this week is a bit better.
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