Yarn Along

With all the sitting down I’ve done since the accident, you’d think I’d be knitting all the time.  Not so.  I’ve gone over 2 weeks without picking up my needles.  It’s been miserable.  The cardigan above is one that I’ve been working on on paper for a few months, but have not shown anything about it because I had submitted it to a “real” publication.  (Not Knitscene this time.)  Well, I got my rejection for this design (yes, I get rejections just about as often as I get acceptances!) and I was actually relieved since we had the car accident and I haven’t been handling stress too well, and I’m pretty sure a deadline for one of my favorite publications is about the last thing I need.

So I finally decided that I need to get back to knitting just for my sanity’s sake.  This project was at a standstill because I was not pleased how the lace stitch was working with the increases, and I needed to do some serious charting before moving on.  What I should have done is just work on a written pattern from one of my favorite designers and just let my brain go on cruise control.  However, I’ve been holding onto this Quince and Co. Lark, in bird egg blue for just ages, and it’s all I want to work with right now.  I’m just stuck on it.  It is so meant for this sweater.

So last night I spent some time charting out the lace.  I’ve charted colors before, but not lace, so that was new for me.  Charted lace in my patterns has always been done by my technical editor because I never felt it was my strong suit.  I’ve decided I need to learn.  It really isn’t as hard as I made it out to be in my mind.

So I ripped back to where the increases start, and today I’m going to take this new chart for a test drive on the needles.

Since the accident I’ve had to have some help around the house, and the only “cleaning lady” I could find who was willing to come way out to the farm was a childhood friend of my mother’s, as they grew up both as missionary kids in Japan, attending the same boarding school.

I love having her come to my house because in addition to being a cleaning maniac, she uses phrases my mom uses.  She prays for me and my healing before she leaves, and she’s almost like honorary family so I don’t mind her seeing my house in such a mess.  Anyway, she told me about a Japanese knitting group, full of local people who have all been involved in mission work in Japan…some with my grandparents, and some others who went to the same missionary school as my mom, and still others who are native Japanese who are living here right now for one reason or another.

Since my local yarn store recently went out of business, I have no knitting group, and she invited me to come and knit with them today.  I’m pretty sure there will be little English spoken.  Even though I don’t speak Japanese, it oddly feels like home when I hear it.  I have a feeling it will be soul feeding.  Like chicken soup.  It will bring me back to days around my grandmother’s table when my aunts and uncles would speak in Japanese like a “code” at Christmas time, and my brother and I scrambling over a Japanese/English dictionary to try to decipher the gifts we perceived them to be talking about.  So I got a sitter for the kids, and I’m going to feed my soul a bit this afternoon.

For reading, I’m working on a very encouraging book The Ministry of Motherhood. It’s just what I need right now.  A better, full review will have to be for another day.

Linking up with Ginny’s Yarn Along where we gather together and talk about what we’re knitting and reading.