Home

You have to be abroad, you have to be hermetically sealed off from your intimates, from your home, to realise what a gift this going-home is. --Chris Barker

And I am home... home with my mom and my brother in Winnipeg.

It was a difficult journey, one that started a few weeks before we actually boarded any plane. I was already weary with news stories and constant chatter of the people around me about cases and new restrictions... and also with the silent judgment from people who had heard I was going to travel. I considered changing plans, delaying seeing my mother for yet another unknown period of time. It was like being slowly squeezed by an invisible vice grip for days and days.

Last Thursday, we went to the airport and watched every single flight on the board get delayed for hour after hour... and when we finally got onto a plane for the first leg of the journey, we landed in Calgary and sat on the tarmac for nearly an hour waiting for the already over-worked ground crew to come and let us off:

We wandered the airport for a couple more hours with tight masks on, avoiding people and wiping surfaces and washing hands over and over. Our second flight got later and later and later, delayed by weather and by a late in-bound flight crew. People were surprisingly calm about the whole situation. I think we all just wanted everything to work out for the best.

And we made it, and we are safe and healthy and together. I'll take it for now.

We had a quiet Christmas, just us in the house with lots of nice food. We've been out for walks in the bright, light snow. I've sat on the couch and watched all my favourite shows. And of course, I have been knitting.

I was not very organized with my packing, but I did bring along my Spica sweater project, which I had carefully packed and put on yarn holders just in case my needles were confiscated (because that would be just the icing on the cake). After a couple of quiet hours in my family home, I bound off and blocked it, and ta da... it's all done:

It's the first (and probably last) time I've knitted an entire sweater in fingering weight and 3.0mm and 3.25mm needles. It was a long slog, but I really love the result. While at times it seemed like a never-ending, tedious, agonizing trudge of a project, the resulting drape was perfect. And the details really pop with the smaller stitches. I love the detail on the neckline, both on the front:

And on the back:

I was unsure if I would like the detail on the sleeves, but the texture is really lovely. It's such a simple but satisfying stitch:

It is overall a really cool pattern, but I found it really complicated at the beginning, and the instructions were sometimes like following a scavenger hunt (i.e.: Work rows 11 and 12 the same way you worked rows 8 and 9... which were the same as row 3 and 4). Once I got to the armpits, I threw the instructions aside and did my own thing. I was lucky in that the issues I thought I would have with the stripe pattern change aligning with my nipple-line ended up not being a problem as I found that the change ended up higher on my chest. I worked decreases about 4 inches after the armpits then worked about three inches even along the waist and then worked increases for the hips. And I liked how the hem is worked in a smaller needle size to create kind of a "hidden ribbing" which keeps the hem nice and tidy without pulling inward too much. I ran out of the darker yarn and I was a little worried about using the lighter contrasting colour on the hem, but I really, really like the look of it:

It's snowing outside and I don't really have a space to take photos of me wearing it, but trust me when I say I'm very pleased with the result. 

The only problem is that I didn't bring any other projects with me. Normally, this would cause me enough distress to force me out to the local yarn shop to get myself something else to do, but I'm actually feeling pretty ok about not having anything to work on right now. I really, really need to sit around and do nothing for a while and think about nothing for a while and just focus on being where I am while I can. We head back to Vancouver Island this Friday and I want to relish this space for as long as possible.

I hope you had a pleasant holiday season. See you in the New Year.