Knitting the Blues: Knitting: For the Head

I only play one on tv? No.

First, to all of you keeping the faith and checking in to see if I had posted over these many months.....well, I was going to say "GET A LIFE!" but sarcasm doesn't always transfer well into the written word. Those who know me personally usually remark on how my writing sounds just like me, so they would totally hear the sarcasm. For the rest of you who are among the unfortunate people who have yet to meet me, I'll try to warn you when you should stick your tongue firmly into your cheek as you read.

Anyway, what I really mean to say, no sarcasm at all, is thanks for keeping the faith. I hope I am, at least occasionally, entertaining or informative in the month ahead.

I just spent the last ten minutes just looking at this screen. Not an auspicious beginning.

My absence is not limited to the blog, I have been woefully neglectful of updating over at ravelry as well. Not that it really benefits anyone except me. Well, I guess that is not entirely true, but what I mean to say first is that keeping up with ravelry is for me. I love the organization of it. I love that I can look at my stash without having to go down to the basement and start pouring through huge containers of yarn to find something (at least everything is stored by weight-and color-AHAHAHAHAHA! Just kidding, I actually do have more colors of yarn than just most shades of blue). I love that I can keep notes on current projects in a place that is less likely to get lost than the notebook or pattern I carry around with me. Having my pdf patterns in one place without having to do that organization on my laptop is awesome and having a spot to 'queue' a project rather than depend on my memory (what was that cardigan I wanted to knit with this yarn.....?) keeps me sane. Ish. And I have to admit that every once in a while I like to just go to my project page and remind myself of all the pretty things I have knitted and how they looked before they were loved and worn. I wish this had been around when I was seven and started knitting, because I have a lot of stuff I wish I could remember. Sometimes I'll come across a pattern and think to myself, "Hey! I knitted that once!"

Anyway, (and this post is not at all what I sat down to write-I kind of love when that happens-sometimes-when there is a lot of time) back to ravelry and it being all about me, it really isn't. I am happy to share my thoughts and notes on things I have knitted in the hopes they are helpful to someone. I have been thankful when I have gleened from someone's experiences with a project or yarn and I try to be as precise in listing the yarn I've used, how much of it, the exact colors and modifications I have made and it DRIVES ME NUTS! when I am looking for the same information and the person has put just the barest amount of info on the page for whatever project it is I am searching. Whatever, not everybody has the time or inclination or whatever and that is fine. Well, in the rational side of my brain I know it is supposed to be fine.... Everybody walking their own path and all that jazz. (you know where that tongue goes....)

Okay, so what I came her to post was this. Sort of. I have knitted stuff and not added the projects to ravelry nor have I blogged about them. The main problem with this is my memory is sketchy on a good day so I can't say that I'll be able to add a lot of detail to the postings. The other problem is that I can't find some of the photos and some of those things were gifted. Whomp.Whomp. Some things I swear I can remember photographing, but it could be a melding of my intention and imagined reality. My new intention is to use those as blog fodder to fill the days this month. Could be boring, but I didn't say I was going to change blogging as we know it, only that there would be content for the entire month of November. Some of that content could be really, really boring.

This, however, is not. Well, if you are a geeky Star Wars person and have the perfect people to knit up a little beanie for it isn't. This thing is cute and fun. What I could remember of the details are posted on my ravelry project page.

Pattern: R2D2 Beanie by Carissa Knits
Yarn: Plymouth Encore
Needle: Can't remember
Cast on: Sometime in December, 2011
Bound Off: Ditto above.

There is time for you to knit one or five of these as Christmas gifts. Your nerdy friends and family will love them!

2012. Twelve. Starting to worry myself over what I am sure are real memories and what might be just imaginations......

Even after posting every day for more than a year, I still don't find it an easy or simple thing to actually share much of my personal life on the blog. Not a whole lot about my family or my health or really personal stuff, it seems so easy for others, but I'm guarded when it comes to that stuff. Partly I think it is for some privacy and partly because things are so often misunderstood in the blogging. I'm not usually looking for advice or pity or any of those kinds of things (unless I specifically ask for them, which I may from time to time), but often people give the unsolicited advice or, I don't know, something I'm not asking for and so I just keep things to myself. Add to that a fiercely independent streak and there is enough reason to maintain my privacy on things. But now I have a finished knit to share, a pattern that is often made to be worn by people who may lose their hair while receiving treatments for cancer. I made it for my mom, who may lose her hair in the next few weeks as a result of her treatments for esophogeal cancer. Currently she is going daily for radiation to her esophagus and weekly for chemotherapy. Burning the inside of the esophagus with radiation sucks, no two ways about that, and the fatigue and nausea that chemo brings. Well, most of us know something about that, if not personally, then because someone we care about does. After this is all done and she recovers she will have surgery to remove her esophagus. Her doctors sound quite confident of a cure, but that cure comes with a price, a long and hard recovery.

And what do knitters do? Well, we knit.

Pattern: Shedir by Jenna Wilson for Knitty. (PDF link) (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Rowan Calmer-slightly over one ball
Needles: size 3
Cast On: February 22, 2009
Bound Off: February 24, 2009

This is the second time I have knit this hat, the first was a few years ago, but my tight knitting at that time made a hat that was too small for any adult. This time it all worked out. I had help choosing a color from Claudia, who had the remainder of a second skein left from a Shedir that she had made, generously offered it up to me and I headed straight to the yarn store to get a full ball to augment it. This was perfect airport knitting (and I spent a lot of time at the airport having arrived at five a.m. for a ten o'clock flight hoping to fly out stand-by on an earlier flight. Long story short: wasn't possible). I knit for the whole time, the whole flight and then in the sun that afternoon. You can make a lot of hat in that time. My fingers are crossed that my mom won't need to wear this hat and she can donate it to Dana Farber for somebody else to use. That would be great.

Thirty-four. Doesn't Meg look cute in the hat?

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July 2015