Like a Mad, Miserly Pirate

Hide things everywhere. Forget about them. Find them randomly and feel surprised like a pirate finding buried treasure. Avoid scurvy. Love more. ― Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not FOR SALE

It's Thanksgiving Weekend here in Canada. I'm thankful for a lot of things: my family, a warm home, a secure, safe life... and, perhaps more prosaically, the weekend. Man, I am so glad to have a long weekend.

I was not prepared for how busy I was going to be the first week back after being away on vacation. Part of it was my fault. I had appointments and activities scheduled after work nearly every day, which made for a lot of running around and a lot of long days. On top of that, the hubby caught a cold, and therefore I spent all week trying to dodge it. I have sprayed and wiped surfaces, taken doses of echinacea, tried to get a decent night's sleep each night, and have been really careful with what I've been eating and drinking. 5pm on Friday was a welcome sight.

It poured with rain on Saturday. We had errands to do: brought the car in for a service and to get the tires changed, did the grocery shopping, and did some early reconnaissance on a new couch. That last one we are not taking lightly, given the name of this blog. Adriene's Couch has got to be the right one.

Yesterday was a lovely, bright day. I had planned to get up and go to the gym, but my body was still weary, and so I decided to lie in a little longer and forgo a morning of huffing and puffing and sweating. We went out later for a walk in the sunshine, which was even more invigorating. I noticed the leaves starting to change colour. It always seems to happen in an instant each year... one moment, they are green, and then the next, they turn into my favourite colours of the year:

We walked by the marina and saw this stunner sitting there. My brain first thought, "Submarine!" but then I realized that it's a lifeboat like the one the pirates took in Captain Phillips. I hope I never need a lifeboat, but if I do, I might be ok with this one, at least for a short while. My seasickness is bad enough that anyone who might get stuck in a lifeboat with me would soon be jumping out to get away from me:

In the midst of my busy week, I have actually been enjoying a bit of knitting here and there. I decided to pull out one of my most treasured skeins of yarn and finally make something from it: a skein of Camelspin yarn by Handmaiden, a blend of 70% silk and 30% camel. I remember the day I bought it a few years ago at Olds Fibre Festival. I saw it hanging on a rack, and I circled it a few times, tentatively touching it, sighing quietly at the price tag, leaving it behind, and then circling back again to buy it and take it home. It was not a bargain find. But it was mine... all mine... I had a sense of what it might feel like to strike gold... or to be a pirate in search of some...

Since then, it has lived in my yarn stash, popping up every so often whenever I dig through to find a rogue skein. Each time I find it, my eyes widen, I stop what I'm doing, and I sigh as my fingers stroke the fibres. It's a treasure, for sure, and I've been waiting for just the right project for it.

I found it recently in Hunter Hammersen's Icterine, which is one of the patterns in her Curls Collection. It's of an unusual shape, a curl indeed, but it looks like a wearable shape. The sample photo reminded me of my little golden treasure, and as soon as I had time to do it, I found my skein and got started.

I wound the skein into a ball by hand, instead of using my ball winder, and I draped the skein around my feet so I could delight in the softness as I did it. So far, it is such a delight to knit:

And the cables are delicious, and they seem to come tumbling out of my needles in a beautiful, ripply cascade. Each time I finish a repeat, I stop to admire it, stretching and stroking the rippling shapes. I am eager to block it to see how it will turn out... but I'm also enjoying it so much that I half-wish the ball was larger so I could knit it longer. We'll see how long that feeling lasts...

In the meantime, we've had our turkey, and and I'm bracing myself for another busy week. I feel somewhat depressed at the prospect of the dark, lonely office awaiting me, and the rain forecasted for later this week, but I figure that, if anything, I've got a treasure in my knitting bag under my desk. If the going gets tough, I can pull it out and chuckle over it like a mad, miserly pirate. That'll make me feel better. It'll at least freak everyone else out enough to stay away...

Happy Thanksgiving!