Before I Delete This Photo Off My Phone

As usual, not much and too much going on here. 

Been retired nearly 500 days so far, and it is splendid, but one thing people don’t talk about is the silence that otherwise would have been punctuated by most-of-the-time pleasant and unexpected conversations during the work day. 

Despite best attempts to stay in touch, I am witnessing some folks drift into obscurity, some of these people I cultivated, what I thought were friendships, for 22 years. 

That being said, a few people have made the effort, and one in particular is a young man, who is young enough and i’m old enough to be his mom. He has taken up a big part of my heart and is the son/nephew/playmate I never had. Very special. 

So this past April when he moved into a new apartment and landed a new job, I did the unthinkable: I started to crochet an afghan for him. 

No pattern. Freehand. The center squares are traditional grannies join-as-you-go, and then worked in the round in an assortment of stitch combinations. Worked in acrylic Caron yarn cake with a 5 mm/H hook.

It is a bit wonky, and I know I added too many stitches n my corners but hope it will get all sorted out with an aggressive blocking when finished. 

Other than this, I managed to go to Rhinebeck for NYS& W, and I think it will be my last time going. I have been going to the festival since 2007, and tbh it is too crowded & chaotic, and I am seeing fewer & fewer familiar faces. I used to look forward to this event to connect with long distance friends and enjoy a perfect autumn day. 

But my reality isn’t everyone else’s reality. Ever since the beginning of covid19 my life has revolved around assessing risks for all activities, and sadly the crowds are just too oppressive for me & causes too much anxiety where the anxiety eclipses whatever enjoyment I might have derived from it. Not sure what else to say on the topic, but i want my life back, and very few people are taking this seriously. And in many ways I feel like a ghost haunting my grave that no one visits—kind of like this blog. But, whatever! These are high quality problems to have compared to the existential crisis that at least 50% of this country is experiencing right now. 

RIP KnittinTherapist

A dear friend passed away after a very brief battle with brain cancer, several months after her mom passed away. 

It is a lot to process. Things moved quickly. Her texts were very distorted word salad. She had scan & she had a brain tumor, which turned out to be cancerous. I’ll never know the type as we never had a phone call to discuss it.

One of the two calls we did have, she let me know she was in a rehab facility & mentioned the possibility or hope of returning home in time for her birthday on 4/30.

When no reply was forthcoming when I sent her a birthday text, assuming the worst, I googled for an obituary, and none was online.

Two days ago, late at night, I checked again, and sadly there it was. She died two days after her birthday. The obituary reads as if her sister composed it. And I have no doubt her husband is bereft. 

https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/42403049/leslie-cecelia-bernard

She was a brilliant person & a dear friend and a talented knitter, and our time as friends was all too brief. In the last five years she helped me grieve the passing of my mom and another dear friend, both passing away 5 months apart. And similar to my friend Susan passing away, our friendship was sustained online, on the phone, and the occasional package in the mail. And in both cases, there just wasn’t enough time to make the trek to the hinterlands of Canada to visit her. 

I shared her obituary on Ravelry, thinking she was still active there, and whatever friends she had there would eventually wonder where she went. 

14 Days Until NYS&W: Hex Cardi Progress

Been hooking like a fiend, and I am now at the point in the progress where I have folded it just so and pinned it so I see the cardigan take shape. 

I also played around with the Victorian Lace grannies as a panel on the back where the two hexagons are joined, and decided to go with a square with fewer rounds to get the desired effect. 

I am now playing around with larger Victorian Lace squares to add at what is currently the bottom of the cardigan to add length and interest. Once I add the squares the cardigan will be humming along nicely. 

I believe the sleeves are the right size, but will know for sure once I attach via slip to join, and I might make a granny square adjustment in the arms if necessary. 

All the said? It is an enjoyable process even if I don’t like how this variegated is pooling. I got several skeins of one color, but got sloppy on the day of purchase and did not double check dyelots. One skein has longer color repeats than the other. Oh well. 

I am crocheting this as a challenge to myself, two weeks more until the day I go to the festival. I have a daydream someone would want to buy it off my back, and I am considering an asking price if $300. Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

19 Days Until NYS&W: Playing “Beat the Clock”

I started a hexagon granny cardigan today which I hope to have finished in time for NYS&W--which is 19 days away.

I like to play beat the clock. granny square projects go quick and the yarn I am using is a variegated with long color repeats so I am not stopping to change colors. Yarn is Caron skinny cake in spearmint,  worked with a 4.0 hook. wrapper has the weight as “3,” but I would put it close to a DK. I am using a hook I normally use for dk. 

Currently, I am up to 10 rounds so far. idk how many I will need to finish one side, maybe 50? 75?

Assuming I have enough yarn, I’m planning a panel of victorian lace grannies in the back and will join each hex to it, and if I have enough yarn? Maybe a good, too.

I bought 2100 yds as that is my average for top down sweaters for adults, and then today the yarn whispered to me it wanted to be a hex cardigan. 

I bought 2 additional skeins--I might as well be Mrs. Magoo. I thought they both were the same pink color lot didn't notice until I got home they are 2 different dye lots/colors.

I was planning to use one for a shawl for my friend/neighbor; however, if I have ample, I  might then make a small hex cardi for a cousin's 18 month old. 

I just wish the process went faster 🤣🤣🤣!

Cardi For TheGeorg

I took this cardi on several trips and managed to finish it this August. Pattern was Cap It Off Topper by Bernat. Don’t recall the yarn used off hand. I have made several of these cardis. It languished for a while but very glad it is now with its recipient.

Creative But Not Fiber Related

 In the absence of any fiber related creativity, I present two projects. 

The first photo is the first of what I hope will be several papier mâché Easter eggs. It is looking pretty rough but in time it will take shape and become a lovely gift for my cousin and perhaps a second one for a friend. 

The second photo is another workplace distraction. These days I have become fond of selecting the perfect pineapple, as I have been craving it a lot these days. And rather than pitch the crowns, I have decided to start planting them. 

The second photo is the one I surreptitiously planted in my co-worker’s office in a planter of a now dead plant, which died during one of the many office closures in the early days of COVID. I planted it as something fun to do, to brighten up my friend’s office, and as a mea culpa because despite my best efforts, the original plant died.

I planted it on Friday, and when I came to the office on Wednesday to put a Spongebob figurine in the pot, my friend laughed and said, “Oh it was YOU!” Turns out it took him until Tuesday before he even realized there was a new plant in the planter (the planter is literally dead ahead in view when you enter his office!). 

I said to him in about two years, with any luck he will have a pineapple, and with any luck, I will be out of the office (at a new job) long before then. We joked about the legacy pineapple & he assured me, when the pineapple finally appears, he’ll have a pina colada in my honor. 

I have planted one for myself, too. And I have a pineapple on my kitchen counter waiting to be dispatched, so, yet another crown to be planted. 

Just trying to create my own fun, just to get through the day. 

Meanwhile, I do have a cardi I have been struggling to finish for a friend, and some yarn I bought in Portugal in October which I want to photograph and share. All in due course!

Most Recent Finished Projects

I noticed this in my drafts and had not posted it LAST APRIL! 

 

Oops I Forgot: Actual Fiber Content

I made a small forest green afghan for a friend’s baby, who was born August 2022. I managed not to delete these photos—I think a photo of the whole blanket is on my Ravelry page, but here are some progress snaps of it. 

Getting My Shit Together

It’s an understatement to say the last 1100+ days has upset the natural order of things. It has destroyed my sense of security, destroyed my focus, and destroyed what little community I had. 

I no longer linger in NYC after medical appointments, so that means no more trips to Annie & Co. or Knitty City (may Pearl Chin’s memory be a blessing). 

School Products closed their show room, so no more trips there & no more great conversations or impromptu hairpin lace lessons from Berta. 

And now mayor Adams is demanding that COVID cautious folk remove their masks before entering stores as an attempt to quell robberies, robberies which their top of the line facial recognition software has failed to elicit a good ROI with an abundance of arrests—quite the contrary. 

Anyway. I was perusing my blog posts from the last (holy shit has it been THAT long?) 17 years, and while I am personally amazed at the volume & variety of my past projects, I am also hit with the sobering realization that with very few exceptions, all those gifts went to people of whom I am no longer friends. 

Change is the nature of life, I suppose, and I have been grieving the loss of it all, especially my weekly “sit and knit” with friends. 

Initially it was a big organized Yahoo group, which then was a Meet Up group, which then fractured when the co-moderator moved what was then a White Plains group to a Yonkers group without discussion—which eventually imploded or disbanded, leaving a couple stragglers to remain in White Plains. Then the group lost one more member. The remaining 3 of us continued to meet up, albeit less frequently, and had some great outings to Loop of the Loom in NYC for a Zen weaving workshop and Stitches East in Hartford, and a couple trips to NY Sheep & Wool before everything just shit the bed due to COVID causing a logistical nightmare. 

*Sigh*

So I am poised to travel for the first time in 3 years, and do so reluctantly with an abundance of cognitive dissonance. 

Trying to get in the right headspace for it. I have a project I plan on packing & hope I have the mental focus for it. I haven’t gotten to the point of sussing out a local yarn store where I will be, partially because I am not mentally there yet, partially because I really don’t need more yarn, and partially because I have been trying to do Swedish Death Cleaning and rid myself of stuff I don’t need anymore or don’t use. 

I miss the life, lifestyle & friends I once had. I’m surviving, but wish I were thriving, but surviving has not been a small accomplishment, so I have to be satisfied with that for now. 

Finally—Fiber Content

A couple years ago I took the free online course Yale has on Coursera, The Science of Well-being. I found it interesting on the whole and managed to get a book by Martin Seligman on learned helplessness. Highly recommend. 

One take-away I learned was that by doing things for others, and being of service, is one of the keys to happiness. 

Recently a dear friend asked if I’d make a cover for her challahs for her sabbath celebrations in her home. I obliged, but worried I might flake out as I’ve been struggling with anxiety & depression quite bad the last 1000+ days. 

I found a pattern, and I suggested a yarn I prefer, and she had the yarn delivered to me. 

My depression has made it difficult for me to focus on anything really. Tv or reading, it all requires an attention span I seem to have lost—so, too, my ability to crochet. 

For 20 years, crochet was much more to me than a craft. It was a creative outlet, and part of a meditation/mindfulness practice, as well as a big part of a community I had before the pandemic stripped all that away. 

Still trying to muster up the gumption to start the process, i wound the yarn into workable balls. I calculated how many stitches to start, and gradually ny hands started doing the familiar movements and the muscle memory kicked in. 

The pattern required I pay more attention to counting stitches, so that was a distraction from the things which make me anxious, at least while I hooked. I suspended reality. 

I hummed a niggun, and I imagined this item being used and loved hopefully for years to come at my friend’s dinner table. 

And before I knew it, I finished it. 

A bit premature, as it is only Thursday night, but shabbat shalom!