Coming Up for Air

The funeral is Tuesday.  Between Lis and I, I think all of Val's friends have been notified.  I made the calls she couldn't bring herself to make.  So...if you knew Val and you get a weird message on your answering machine that sounds like a sheep bleating, "V-v-a-a-a-a-l-l-l's d-d-ea-ea-ea-ea-d-d...", it was me.  It was the best I could do.  My voice has never shook (shaken?) so much in my entire life. 

Thank you for your kind comments and emails.  They mean so much to me.  I am still trying to make sense of how someone so healthy and fit can just drop dead at age 51.  I am still trying to make sense of why Lisa, who has endured more terrible losses than anyone I have ever known in my life, has to endure even one more.  She is extremely fragile, both physically and emotionally, and I am very afraid for her.

 My knitting has been scattershot over the last few days.  A new clue came out for Evenstar, and I've worked on it a little bit.  I've plugged away a little on Luna Moth, but not enough to get a complete color change.  I've been quite the restless knitter, but I have picked up one new technique:

Yes, thanks to Dee who told me she taught herself to knit socks on a road trip (or something like that), I decided to take my mind off of my grief by learning a few techniques for toe-up socks!  I grabbed some of this yarn that I've had lying around for a few years now (bought it the first time I thought I'd learn to knit socks:

I tried this a few years ago, and it was a hissyfit on needles, so I've always thought I'd need to take a class to learn how to knit socks.  I still may find out that would help, but I think I did really well on my first toe!

This might be a nice sock for Romeo.  I think it would fit him (not that he would actually touch his toes to a patterned sock but...).  However, I wanted a pair of socks for me...and I really don't care a lot for this colorway - it was in the clearance bin and was going to be my "learning" yarn, not my "wearing" yarn.

I just happened to have some Knit Picks Stroll kettle dyed sock yarn and a pattern, so I grabbed my #2 dpns and put my newfound sock knitting skills to the test.  My first toe turned out like this (please ignore Romeo's feet):

I was zipping along nicely, did a couple of the instep pattern repeats, then tried it on.  It was...um...big.  I think socks are supposed to fit snugly, yes?  This one was quite roomy.  I felt like I was knitting so tightly that the needles would break, but when I checked my gauge, I was off by both 1 stitch and 1 row.  Curses!!!  I frogged it, put away the #2s and got out the #1s, fed Wilbur and went to bed for the night.  The cute little socks in springy grasshopper green will have to wait till another day.  But now, at least I have confidence that they will be done!

Oh!  I also wanted to show off my new case for circs and dpns!  I bought this nifty suede covered file case at Barnes Noble several years ago and never did anything with it.  It sat sadly in the basement and, every time I cleared out stuff to donate to charity, it would go into a box...then at the last minute be rescued and put back in the basement.  The green case clearly had a purpose.

 I decided this would be the perfect case for my circs and dpns - and it is!  The problem was labeling the individual pockets.  First I tried these Post-It type folder tags:

They really didn't work.  Every time I opened the case, they'd go flipping everywhere.  Some of them I never found.  One, I found on the bottom of Wilbur's left front paw! 

I spent a good half hour at Office Max last week researching tabs, and I found the perfect set.  Voila!!!

My needles are organized, and I am a happy woman!  Wilbur is happy, too, now that he is no longer branded "#10 1/2".  Say "Hi" to my fiddles.  They get pretty lonely these days when all I have time to do is knit and sing.  Poor babies...

And it is officially spring here in Ohio, so you know what that means...

This is what I woke up to Friday morning.  See that footprint just to the left of the skidmark left by the morning paper?  That's where my sandaled-but-otherwise-barefoot foot met three inches of "spring".  The neighbors have yet to recover...

I hope to get some serious knitting done tomorrow (maybe a little blogging, too). Thanks for reading, commenting, and being part of my tying together the holes (both literal and figurative) of my life.