Autumn is here...
Indeed, along with choir rehearsals, football, Halloween and Thanksgiving. Halloween is not a thing at our house anymore. We live off the beaten track; our place is not worth the effort for a kid with the desire for a large candy haul. Not that it stops us from buying candy. There's always a drawerful the grandkids manage to locate;)! Somehow the candy manages to disappear without the help of the neighborhood munchkins.
Today was an unusual Sunday. I wasn't feeling very well last night, so I decided to forgo Sunday services at St. Pete's. I was truly sorry to miss them - joining that choir has been a great experience so far. Hopefully, I can properly contribute. Our choir director is an excellent organist/graduate student from Peabody, very talented, and very kind, so we are very lucky! My dear friend, Nancy also sings there and I know a number of singers from singing and worshipping with them in the past, so it's a lot like coming home.
Today was also unusual in that instead of having Sunday dinner with the gang, a bunch of us went to the Firstborn's home and watched the Ravens play Houston. A terrific win and a delicious bunch of chili, later, I am feeling no pain:)!
I have been attempting to cast on the second half of the bottom ribbing for the Weekender sweater. I've had two false starts already - having cast on the wrong yarn in the wrong number of stitches while trying to remember how I should begin a tubular cast-on. As soon as I finish this post, I will tackle it again under the theory that the third time is the charm.
I finally - FINALLY - finished Rhapsody in Cables and wore it twice, thanks to the recent cold air visiting this part of the US from Canada.
While at our Fall Knitting Retreat at the end of October, I started a couple of new projects. Both are shawls and each is in the nascent stage. And each will take a bit of time. First, Pauliina Karru's Enchanter:
Pauliina, also known as "Lina" of the eponymous podcast and her own design company, "Lina Knits," is an excellent designer. I have purchased a number of her shawl patterns. Her podcast is also really interesting. She lives in Helsinki, Finland with her young son. I thoroughly enjoyed her daily vlog posts over the Holiday season last year and am hopeful she will do the same this year if she has time. It was interesting to see how she went about her day. Her English is impeccable - this fact puts those of us in the US to shame - we simply do not teach foreign languages early enough! She's had a recent loss in her life and I hope she is doing well. If anyone deserves to, she does. I was encouraged to see this pattern as one of her latest. Once you get started on it, it is not difficult to learn the lace part of it, but it is a shawl and therefore does require a good deal of knitting.
The second shawl is the Finella Shawl by Allison LoCicero - part of a Lace Collection from Knit Picks called Sojourn. I am currently working the edging pattern. For 120 repeats. Of 8 rows. And that's just the beginning. I think the good news is, that once this work is done, and one picks up stitches for the body, one then starts decreasing, so (thankfully) the work goes increasingly quickly. My favorite kind of shawl. At least I hope it is:)! I have progressed fairly far beyond the point shown in the photograph below, but I am still only about one third of the way toward finishing the edging. And that's Oh Kay.
With these two additional projects, I have 1 weaving project, 1 cross-stitch project, and 60 knitting projects on the needles and 38 projects waiting to be started. Oh dear.
This morning I took a look at the oldest twelve of those projects and determined I would either finish them or frog them in the next six months. As a result, the above three projects may wait a bit. Here's the reality: I am 65 years old. If I am very lucky,(VERY lucky) I will live another 15 years - 25 years. I need to either finish these projects or frog them and give them to someone for whom they will (as the phrase goes) Spark Joy. Given my usual knitting speed, were I to give each of the projects in my list a month to complete, it would take me about five years to finish the ongoing projects - and another 3-plus years to finish the remaining 38. Assuming I complete all these projects in time, I will be 73-75 years old when they are done. And that assumes no new or additional projects in the meantime - a very unlikely possibility.
Damn this is grim. Maybe my knitting time should be dedicated to making things for others. At least then I will have the joy of seeing them do something good.
Let me think on this awhile....
In the meantime, I have to get ready for tomorrow's fun and frolic.
God be with you 'til we meet again:)+
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