Susceptibility

I have been very weepy, quite forlorn, for at least a week.  The slightest thing --- from all parts of the good/bad, happy/sad spectra --- has sent me into sobs.  It will suddenly be 7 or 8 at night, and I realize I've just been sitting on the couch, staring, for the whole day.  

On Wednesday, though, I was able to break out a pair of cowboy boots for the first time this year.  I wore them to therapy.

That helped for a little while.

Raised In A Southern Baptist House, A Girl Talks About Popes

The first Pope I remember is Paul VI:

I remember his as small, thin and "pointy."  He had become Pope when I was 3, and was in "office" until 1978.  I'm sure we watched his funeral, as my mother loved pomp and ceremony.  

I remember the election of John Paul I, because I was old enough (18) to watch/realize what was going on.

I thought, at the time, that Pope John Paul had done a remarkable thing in choosing his name.  I also felt he had a kind and calming face.

John Paul's death was startling.  I recall senses of turmoil and disbelief and worry.  The next Pope, however, ameliorated all of that, almost immediately.

John Paul II smiled.  He had charisma.  And, possibly my favorite thing about him, he wore a watch.  Honestly, now --- who thinks about the Pope having to check the time?  It seems like there would be a Cardinal of Time, am I right?  And he skiied.  Very unlike the two Popes of my memory.

And now, the first Pope that is going to be seared into my children's memories.

I don't know how many more Holy Fathers I will get to see, but this one has sunken deep into my heart.  He seems more human than those before him.  Or something;  I can't really get the words right.  But, he wears a watch, too, and he gives us moments like this:

Issues

None of my cameras are working.  The one on my iPod will take pictures, but not e-mail them.  The one on my phone won't focus.  Ever.  And the actual camera takes pictures. but when I attach it to the computer to download them, nothing happens.  So, my posts, for a while will have odd pictures, because they are the only ones I have access to.

This is a particularly bad time for a camera ordeal, as I just gutted my etsy store.  It needed newer descriptions and --- of course --- better pictures.  Hopefully, things will come together somehow.

Hmmph

Sitting here yesterday, I caught a little chill, so I went to get my robe.  I put it on, sat back down on the couch, and immediately felt like I was getting sick.  That wasn't true, but I found it interesting that my body's reaction was, "She's putting on a robe --- she must be ill."

I'm Keeping This Tab Open So I Can Type Things As I Think Of Them

I have a tiny age spot on my right hand.  It's my first one, and it's bothering me more than I would have thought.  Keep in mind, this is the hand Finn attacked --- there are bite scars all the way around.  But this one little brown spot is distressing me to no end.

I keep having a dream in which I'm trying to teach Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to knit.

He adamantly refuses to even try.

My reading momentum has come to a dead, screeching halt.  The book here on the coffee table is enjoyable, but it's simply not gripping me like the half dozen or so before it.  

I've "adopted" a horse through Humanity for Horses.  Each month, I pay for a bale of hay for her.

Her name is Ava Gardner.  I confess --- I chose her because of her name.  Whoever comes up with the horses' names there does a magnificent job.  Check out the website and see.

In A Bind

The milk and silk yarn has been reassigned to this:

It's called "Nussler's Ribbed Loop," and can be found on Ravelry.  Easy, but pretty, and it buttons together, so there's the additional Good of being able to look for those.  Buttons have always been fun for me, even when they weren't all whimsical and shape-ish.

The first Drea has been finished.  There isn't enough definition between the stripes and the solid section as one might want. but I knew that when I chose the yarns.

I'm on to Drea Two with the colors I showed you the other day.

Today, I've been working on/with the Scoreboard Knitalong today.  I'm using gold and black for Vanderbilt, obviously.  Fortunately, those colors work for the Steelers, my favorite NFL team.  I'd have to break out red and blue for my Titans.

I'm in a bit of a predicament when it comes to knitting overall.  My fingers have been really, really aching lately, which makes knitting very painful.  But, then, just about anything I do is painful, so the decision becomes, "Which pain sounds least awful?"  Seaming is one of the lesser agonies, so the quilt has been seeing some action:

I'm trying to be as random as possible putting squares together, going for that Crazy Quilt kind of feel.  But Matching is a hard impulse to ignore.

This Was Bound to Happen

The Arrowhead Cowl is no more.  I lost control of the pattern, and I am hopeless at correcting in-the-round mistakes.  So, the yarn went back to the ball.  If I have to rip a project apart, I very, very seldom ever cast on for the same thing right away.  I don't know why, really.  

Also, if I have difficulty with a pattern, I'm unlikely to return to it.  I will probably never make an Arrowhead Cowl because this one went badly.  Again, I don't know why that is.  But it's as if I am physically unable to read the pattern, or move my hands and fingers.

Rupert, ever stalwart, commiserates.

Grand

The most beautiful man I have ever seen is Robert Redford in "The Way We Were."

(The most beautiful man I've ever seen in person was someone walking by me in front of the Middle Tennessee State University library.  But I digress.)

This afternoon, I went to see Redford's movie "A Walk in the Woods,"  and there were several times that the camera caught him still looking glorious:

 
It's a nice little movie.  Nothing weighty or serious, but a fine way to while away a couple of hours.

Color Commentary

Remember the mitred cotton squares I am making?  As I've been finishing them, I'll find four that look good together, and sew them into an extra large square.  Then I am sewing the extra large squares together, without keeping up with how big the thing is getting.  Turns out it's long enough for a queen-size!  It's definitely got a Crazy Quilt feel to it --- a melange of colors, if you will.  Picture soon.

Winding yarn isn't as painful as knitting with it, so, even though the first Drea Shawl isn't done, I've already got the colors for the second one pulled:

The main color is Anzula's Squishy, in "Penny."

The contrasting color is KPPM P313.

(It's showing much darker in this photo;  there's a good amount of white and silver in the hank I have.)

Keeping At My Work

The Drea is coming along.  It is worked with both yarns until you've increased to 135 stitches, then finished with the main color, increasing to 175.  I'm about four rows into the all-main-color part.  Of course, I'll be starting another one when this one is through, but I thought I'd better get another project going just for the heck of it.

I decided on this Arrowhead Cowl:

with this yarn from KnitCrate:

It's called "1/2 N 1/2 Flame," and is 50% milk, 50% silk.  It is soft and smooshy as a dream.  I'm using the color that the photo shows, also it's quite creamy-white, not sort-of-buttery-yellow.

It hurts to knit.  It's impossible for me to write legibly.  You'd think that nerve damage, when it causes loss of sensation, would not be painful.  But I'm here to tell you it is.  For every two minutes of knitting, there has to be at least ten minutes of rest.  It's supremely irritating.

Repeat After Me

My great friend Kathy got hooked on a pattern a while back: the Trap:

It's as long as you care to make it, with an interesting shape, and, as I know you can tell, it's also a wonderful way to use any number of yarn colors you want.

I have been similarly hooked by this:

The Drea Shawl shown here was worked with fingering yarn as the main color, and KPPM as the contrast.  There is nothing better for me, knitting-wise, than a simple pattern that yields pretty results.  So, I set out to find sock yarns and any accompanying yarns that would work as a shawl.  I've got 6 sets.

The first one is being made with Claudia Handpainted Yarn in Crocus:

with A Hundred Ravens'" Tornado Warning:

(There wasn't a picture of the colorway online.)

It isn't a pain to work with, and it has easy starting/stopping points.  You knit 2 rows of one color, 2 rows of the other.  I'm enjoying this piece.  Wonder if I can enjoy it five times more?