Knitting – Page 24 – Yarn, Books & Roses

MacKenzie Speaks: Crutches, Mountains, and Squirrels

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

Do you see this ball of yarn? This is my most favorite yarn at the moment. So soft. So nice to cuddle with. The little flecks of color are my favorite.

The Mother of Cats has been somewhat difficult to work with lately. She has been limping all around the house, and yesterday her physical therapist finally told her she needs to use crutches for the next few weeks. HER CRUTCHES KEEP GETTING IN MY WAY!!! What is up with that? She doesn’t go outside as much as she used to, and she started knitting this simple sweater with just one color of yarn instead of the Koivua sweater that I just love. There are more colors to chomp in the Koivua, and it is now so big she can’t keep me off of it while she knits. Is she working on the sweater that I can sleep on while she works? No! She is not!! She says knitting with the one color is easier to stuff into a bag to haul around with crutches. Whatever. What is up with the Mother of Cats? A little adversity and she totally folds: I’m so disappointed with her!

Except I do really like this new yarn so I’m starting to forgive her for putting the Koivua into time out. This sweater is called “Climb Every Mountain.” What is a mountain?

Today the Mother of Cats finally let me go outside while she took pictures of all of her knitting and we watered all of the outside flowers.

Look at what happened to the blooms on the hydrangea plant over the last few days of cool weather. The flowers have turned pink again! The Mother of Cats was really happy to see the flowers. I was like… meh… laters… I have to go have a chat with that squirrel…

While I was chasing the squirrel around the yard she took these pictures of the new sweater. It is starting to look pretty good, isn’t it? It is kind of nice to sleep on…

She is now below the sleeves and getting ready to use her last ball of yarn.

Oh, yeah. Look at the new stitch markers that she made to use while making this sweater. How cute are these? She should use these to play with me!!

Now it is late in the afternoon, the squirrel has left to do whatever squirrels do, and the Mother of Cats, the crutches, and I are back in the house. I just got some yummy salmon to eat and the Mother of Cats is getting ready to knit again. Hmm… that new sweater is getting pretty big now. Maybe I can sleep on part of it while she is working. I’m so handsome and the yarn really looks nice next to my fur. Maybe she will be reasonable for once and will let me do that. IF she loves me I will get a quality nap on yummy yarn.

I’m such a good boy.

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The sweater is Climb Every Mountain by Heidi Kirrmaier. That yarn that MacKenzie loves is Tweed DK by Western Sky Knits, and it really is nice to work with. My Ravelry notes are here.
How ironic is it that I’m knitting a sweater called “Climb Every Mountain” while trying to master walking with one crutch?
The hip has become even more challenging. I met with the physical therapist yesterday who had printed out the notes from the hip specialist that I met with last month. Things are worse than I realized. I have IT band syndrome, inflamed tendons associated with my hip adductors, and then there is the severe hip bursitis. I need to rest the tendons as much as possible as I stretch the IT band and use the topical anti-inflammatory gel that we hope will get the swelling down. Since I can’t walk without limping and the adductors need a rest I’m on crutches for the next three weeks at a minimum. I’m truly a mess as I can’t use a cane (bad wrists), ice (thank you, Raynaud’s), or work in a pool (Sjogren’s, I really hate you right now), so things are challenging, but I’m really motivated since I want to stay mobile as long as possible and I’m a poor candidate for a hip replacement.
MacKenzie is learning to stay out of the way of the crutches, but he is taking the whole thing personally. Poor thing. I have started giving him more cookies… I have NOT surrendered any of the sweaters to him.
Koivua is waiting for the first snow fall as I rush to finish two transitional sweaters. Winter, take your time…
Finally!!

MacKenzie Speaks: First Day of Fall

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

The Mother of Cats says that the seasons changed today and that fall has arrived. Whatever. Is that a type of cookies?

The Mother of Cats and I went outside to water all of the plants today and I must say that the flowers all look the same to me, and the squirrels are as frisky as ever, but there IS something going on with the trees…

I’m not sure why fall is a big deal, but the Mother of Cats is knitting faster then ever. She says crazy stuff like Winter is Coming! and I need more sweaters! The Mother of Cats can be really confusing sometimes… Anyway, she worked like crazy over the weekend and look at what she got finished:

That’s right. Soft fluffy cashmere blend mash-up socks.

If the Mother of Cats loved me she would let me have these socks to put in my bed, but NOPE! she won’t take them off her feet. Why is the Mother of Cats so very selfish? She says that they are for her to sleep in on cold nights, but it isn’t even a little cold and she is wearing them right now. Selfish Mother of Cats!! I want my own cashmere sleeping socks, too!! Well, I want them to sleep on, but you get the idea.

I’m such a good boy!

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

These socks are a mash up of three other socks patterns. The details are on my Ravelry project page.

Check out the garter stitch heel on these babies. They aren’t sturdy, but boy are they soft, comfy, and warm! Look at that cashmere halo on them!

To MacKenzie’s disgust I haven’t started knitting the second sleeve on my Koivua sweater. I went crazy and cast on another sweater. It’s too soon to talk about it, but here’s a teaser showing off the knitted fabric and one of the stitch markers I made to go with it.

I had to start this sweater right away because it kind of screams “Fall!” Seriously. I need this sweater immediately. I’ll get that other sleeve finished before the end of the month…

Happy Fall, everyone!

MacKenzie Speaks: A Sleeve and a Sock

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

I have been really helping the Mother of Cats with her knitting this week. Look at how carefully I am inspecting this sock that she is working on. We have been listening to an audiobook every evening while she stitches away on the sock, with lots of breaks to give me attention, of course. I think that she would get bored and fall asleep if I didn’t keep standing on her and head butting her work. It is a hard job, but someone needs to do it.

See how much progress she has made? This is what you get when you have an attention-to-detail cat helping you out.

The Mother of Cats is calling this another Mash-Up sock that combines elements of three other socks that she has made in the past. Whatever. Like I would remember details like that?! What I do remember is that I sent her to the store to buy me tuna flavored cookies and she came back with some kind of substandard chicken flavored ones. This is just typical of the Mother of Cats. So thoughtless. I don’t know why I exhaust myself helping her when she doesn’t treat me the way she should…

Especially when I helped her knit this sleeve this week too!!

I can’t believe how exhausting all this knitting supervision has been. Luckily the sweater is now so big the Mother of Cats can’t keep me off of it any longer. Which is pretty nice since I need a nice place to nap after all of this work.

The Mother of Cats needs to share her things more often!!

Last night the Mother of Cats started ANOTHER SWEATER before she was done with this one. Something about the second sleeve syndrome… Whatever. I think that she just wanted to let me nap a little longer. I deserve it after all. Maybe the Mother of Cats does think a little about my needs after all.

I’m such a good boy.

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The sweater is a Koivua by Caitlin Hunter. My project notes are here. I made modifications to the sleeve to make it less bell shaped at the bottom and am pretty happy with how it came out. I put the details into my project notes if you want to see what I did.
Oh, yeah. That sock is a total mashup masterpiece. The top is the edging from the Geology socks. The ribbing is kind of an Emily’s Favorite socks deal, and the garter stitch heel and toe are inspired by the Om Shanti Bed Socks.
Yep. I did cast on another sweater last night. I also had to made a new set of stitch markers to use with it because a) they had to all be different from each other, and, b) they had to coordinate with the sweater. What?! Doesn’t everyone do this? There’s no problem here, people. There is, however, another post brewing…
The book that MacKenzie and I are listening to is A Better Man by Louise Penny. I love these books!!

Have a great (knitting) weekend, everyone!

Return to my Kiovua

Days are good, my hip is starting to feel better (but I’m still taking it easy), and the cat has calmed down. Okay, I had to give him several of my little knitted projects to sleep on, but the cat trap worked and I’m knitting in peace.

Socks and some knitted mitts make an effective cat trap as it turns out.

With two evenings of peaceful knitting I’ve made a lot of progress on the Koivua sweater that I’m knitting. Check it out!

Now that I’m working my way down a sleeve I’m starting to get excited about the sweater!! My project notes are here.

I did an additional repeat of the knit/purl textured section at the bottom of the sweater and then decided to do corrugated ribbing and an I-cord bind off instead of the all white ribbing that the pattern called for. The ribbing at the top of the sweater really pulled in, and I decided that I didn’t want that going on in my sweater since the patterned section is going to try to balloon out and misbehave as it is. Hopefully the corrugated ribbing will tame things once I’m wearing this baby.

I’m now tacking some sleeve modifications as I’m not sure that I want them to bell out as much as the pattern has. Stay tuned for more pattern trickery!

Have a great weekend everyone!

It’s the Little (Mash-up Knitting) Things…

My hip is in full rebellion these days and I am spending a lot of time off my feet trying heal up. For reasons beyond my understanding MacKenzie views this as an invitation to make constant demands: Pet me! Feed me!! More cookies! Let me go outside!! I must be on your lap!! You exist to serve me!!!!!

He stands next to me as I knit crying sadly, trying to move onto my lap and into the yarn and knitting. It is sad. So sad. Right up to the point when the yarn chomping starts and the claws start flashing. Sigh.

There is nothing for it but to put the knitting aside, gather the cat up onto my lap and deliver unto him all the hugs and attention that he is craving. Then some cookies!

Caught between a ill behaved hip and a demanding cat I have abandoned the sweater that I’ve been working on and switched to small projects that are easy to move away from chomping teeth and flashing claws. Projects that can be worked on in bed, outside in the garden swing, and downstairs by the television. Projects that can be easily moved to safety or stuffed into a project bag.

Ta-daa! I finished these cashmere blend yummy socks to wear while lounging around and in bed. These socks are knit a little loosely and sport garter stitch heels and toes, so they aren’t suitable for daily wear, but they sure are perfect for my cold feet while babying my ill behaved hip, and were easy to complete while evading a cat.

The socks were knit from the toe up and have cleverly shaped garter stitch heels and toes. I added the garter band to the top of the sock before putting on a K1P1 ribbing at the top. Please ignore the little gap there in the ribbing… I took the picture before the final finishing as I was losing the light. Here are my Ravelry notes. The sock pattern is Om Shanti Bed Socks by Alice Yu and the yarn is Serenity 20 from Zen Yarn Garden in the colorway “Burning Bush.”

Do you remember the light blue ribbed socks that I made a couple of weeks ago? They were just simply ribbed socks based on my rote 64 stitch vanilla sock that is basically the Dave sock by Rachel Coopey with a different rib that I liked when I knitted the No. 5 Union Street socks and then saw again in the Emily’s Favorite Socks pattern in the book “Knits About Winter.” Hey, when you are immobilized by a cranky hip and hounded by a demanding cat, you start to just invent new combinations of socks, right? In this circumstance it is just frankly impossible to have any charts or patterns involved in the knitting, so it is “have some fun” time. Anyway, there was some yarn left over from the socks, so I kept knitting…

And these simple wristers (short arm warmers) just fell off my needles.

To make the wristers I just kept expanding on my theme of stealing design ideas from other projects and smashing them together to make something that works for me. I had made some Geology Socks recently, and the top edging was a nice use of the feather and fan pattern, so I re-used it for the top of these warmers. Then I knitted the body of the wrister using the K3P1 ribbing and finished off with an I-cord BO.

I kind of like to wear these with the I-cord edging down by my hand.

But I think that they look pretty good with the lace at the wrist also.

These wristers will work well this winter under sweaters and over long sleeved shirts in my usual struggle to keep my fingers warm, but I’m wearing them alone right now whenever I get exposed to air conditioning. Pleased with my sock pattern inventiveness I cast on another sock last night…

This is another mash-up of ideas and patterns that grew from my earlier projects. This yarn, Fancy Monkey sock, is another cashmere blend for my cold feet. The edging is the same one used for the wristers, but I’m making K3P1 ribbed socks again once I’m past the edging. I’m debating putting on garter stitch heels and toes like the Om Shanti socks. It will be fun! It’s a knitting adventure, I tell MacKenzie.

Who has been watching me steadily from the foot of the bed, waiting for an opening to move onto my lap, computer or no computer. He resents the computer even more then the knitting. Let’s not even start talk about books and reading…

Isn’t it cute that MacKenzie still likes his mouse? The tail has been chomped off at this point, but he still likes to bat it around.

Hopefully my hip will start behaving better in a few days, MacKenzie will become less needy, and I will be able to get back to the Kouvia sweater. I’m getting adventurous with that project, too. I can’t wait to blog about the sweater, and I’m working myself up to a couple of hip/scleroderma posts as I’ve been racking up adventures in that part of my life also.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Late Summer Knitting

The heat here in Colorado has been unbelievable: we hit 100°F on Monday and it is still hot. My garden, however, is recovering in the lower light intensity and flowers are starting to bloom again. Feeling pretty good about things I’ve taken to knitting outside in the garden again in the cool of the mornings and late evening.

Knitting outside can be entertaining again. My sedum is blooming now and the garden where they are planted is abuzz with a steady parade of bees. This sedum is called “Autumn Joy Stonecrop” and I’m really impressed with the blooms. So are the bees, evidently!

Today while knitting and sipping my morning latte I got my latest pair of socks done.

Easiest knitting ever! I made these socks in a simple K3P1 ribbing that makes then fit well while providing mindless easy knitting in the evenings while listening to audiobooks. My project notes are here.

The yarn I used is from Western Sky Knits and I’m really becoming a fan of this smooth sock yarn. I still have enough yarn left over for some arm warmers. I think that I’ll put an interesting lace edge on then and use some Icord, but keep that simple ribbing. Adventures in knitting, people!

Here’s the book that I’ve been listening to while knitting.

My latest audiobook has been wonderful! Seriously, I knit way too long into the night because I had to get to the next chapter to discover what would happen next. It’s a book about family, ghosts, dreams, invisible ties, and, of course, a tiger that isn’t all it appears to be. The audio is done by the author and that made things even better. I loved it.

My potted roses are all doing well after recovering from spider mite attacks early in the summer. This pink bloom makes me especially happy. I’m still debating whether I will plant these roses into the ground or bring them inside for the winter again. There’s lots of time, right?

I do love the colors of fall, but right now I’m really enjoying the bits of pink going on in my life. There is pink in my garden right now…

All of the flowers in pots on my deck have recovered and are putting out blooms. These, I think, are verbena.

I’m knitting with pink yarn using my favorite pink stitich marker.

And the sweater being knit in the pink (and cream) yarns is finally far enough along to get checked for size. A few more inches, don’t you think? Heavens, this sweater sure needs to be blocked, doesn’t it, but I’m really pleased that it looks like it will fit okay. This is Koivua by Caitin Hunter, and my project notes are here.

Today is the last day of high heat for awhile; a front is pushing in and tomorrow will be much cooler. Okay, it will be hot, but not blazing hot. Hopefully there will also be some rain. There’s lots of time yet for roses, knitting in the garden, and days watching bees.

Oops. A flock of geese just flew over my house at the treetops, honking like crazy. It’s like they are laughing at me. No matter what is happening right now with the weather and in my garden, autumn is coming, and the first snow is on the way.

Woohoo! Knitting weather!

Have a good weekend, everyone.

MacKenzie Speaks: She’s Casting On Again!!

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

The Mother of Knits and I have been working really hard lately and we have been making progress on her projects.

She whipped up a simple pair of socks with this yarn that she really likes: Concrete Sunset sock yarn dyed by Western Sky Knits. Her project notes are here.

I’ve been closely supervising her work on the Koivua sweater all week. This is starting to look pretty good, huh. Will the Mother of Cats let me sleep on this stunning and fluffy new cat bed? No. She will not. I keep trying to explain it to her, but she is so self absorbed! Always, it is about her needs and she never leaves it out for me to nap on.

This week the Mother of Cats realized that she had NOTHING to knit in bed while listening to audiobooks. There was a panicky search of the yarn stash (woohoo! I love helping the Mother of Cats in the stash room!) and a search for patterns on the computer and in her pattern notebooks. I helped her look for patterns by plopping my body down on all of the ones that I thought looked good. Why does the Mother of Cats get so emotional while I’m helping her? I only scratched her a little bit while scrabbling through the papers… Anyway, after finding the yarns and patterns we were ready to wind the yarn and get going on casting on lots of new knitting fun. I love winding yarn!!! The Mother of Cats needs to do things like this that I like more often. She can be so boring sometimes…

We picked these two yarns to make a Mount Moran Lace Cowl. I can’t wait to make this!

The Mother of Cats’ feet get cold all the time now. We decided that this yarn would be perfect to make her some yummy cashmere bed socks. Oh. Now that I look at this again it would also be good to make another Mount Moran Lace Cowl. Hmmm… maybe we need to go look through the stash for some more yarn for socks. Woohoo! More play time!!

The Mother of Cats and I decided to make another Suburban Wrap by Joji Locatelli with this yarn. I can’t wait to get started on this one!

But the project that got started right away was another simple pair of socks that can be knitted while listening to audiobooks in bed in the evenings. I always sleep on the Mother of Cats legs and help her keep track of her rows while she works. It is my favorite time of the day/night.

Do you notice that any of these projects are for me? No, you DO NOT!! Not one of these projects is for me after all that work I did to help her find patterns and yarn. There is no mouse here! Where is the new cat bed or kitty blanket? Why is the Mother of Cats so very, very selfish!!

Okay, I’m calm again. I do love knitting with the Mother of Cats. Okay, it isn’t as good as going outside to play in the yard, but she does remember to pay attention to me in the evenings. I get my favorite cat food for dinner, she pets me while we knit, I usually get to chomp yarn, Little Miss Pitty Pat comes out to play and eat her dinner, and I get to sleep on the down comforter on the bed. Life is okay with the Mother of Cats.

Why does she do these HORRIBLE THINGS to me?

That’s right. Today she crammed me into the pet carrier and took me to the vet’s office for SHOTS!!! The horror. The betrayal. There were dogs there!!!! Why does the Mother of Cats do these things to me? She did give me some kitty cookies when I got back, but it was just AWFUL!!!

I have been sleeping since getting back from the horrible adventure this afternoon, but I’m going to get up in a few minutes to demand that I have another yummy serving of cat food and then a trip outside to play with the bugs and squirrels. She owes me! Then it will be knitting time and I’ll be chomping yarn overtime because… she owes me!!

I’m such a good boy!

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats: I’ve got nothing, MacKenzie said it all! Let’s hope he stays sleepy from his vaccinations so I can cast on a couple of new projects this evening because this yarn is too stupendous to ignore. 🙂

Koivua Days in my Garden

What a wonderful week it has been. I’ve been out in the yard for a couple of hours every day with MacKenzie and a book or my knitting. The buzz of cicadas echo in the trees over my head, the squirrels frolic along the fence, and the flowers are starting to bloom again after the blazing heat of July. Life is good, I’ve raced through two books and last week started a couple of new knitting projects that are keeping my interest and making me happy. Let me show off my current knitting love, Koivua.

How beautiful is this!! I’ve just separated the arms from the body of the sweater and it is time for me to attach the rose yarn again to start the next colorwork chart for the body. Here are my project notes if you want more info about the yarns. The flowering plant is lantana, and it just burst back into bloom this week. This is what happens when you give plants some Miracle Gro… I’m wondering if this plant will survive the winter if I plant it at the end of the season. It will be a plant experiment!

Sweater in progress. — Sturgill sweater.

I had some issues with the planning of this sweater. The pink is left over from this sweater that I knitted last winter, Sturgill by Caitlin Hunter. I really liked the contrast of the rose variegated yarn with the grey, so I ran right out and bought some grey tweed yarn to use with my leftover rose yarn to make a Koivua. Good plan, right? Then I thought about things a little more. Looking at my Sturgill you can see that the variegated nature of the two yarns made it hard to see the colorwork pattern in the sweater. I liked that effect in Sturgill, but maybe I shouldn’t make another sweater that had the same fuzzy pattern effect going on with the same colorways. I snuck out to the yarn store and bought some yarn that would give me more contrast with the variegated rose yarn. I was on the hunt for a nice neutral cream yarn.

Bingo! Look at what I found at the yarn store that opened just a few miles away from me. This Kelbourne Scout is a new yarn for me, but this won’t be the last time I buy it! It isn’t superwash, but it is really bouncy and soft. Just what I needed to show off the pattern.

Buying 5 skeins of yarn puts me back a little on my yarn destash project, so I need to really start knitting fast now. I casted right on and after a couple of days I had this:

The cream yarn knitted up wonderfully: it is bouncy, has a slight halo, and shows off the pattern well. I’m happier than ever about the yarn color switch as this cream really brightens up the rose yarn.

I’m much happier with the cream colored yarn than I thought I would be. I tend to avoid light colors in yarns, but this time it was the right decision as the colors in the rose yarn are just shining. The yarn is such a joy to handle I’ve been working outside in my garden swing in the late mornings with little gardening breaks.

Butterflybush bloom — My butterfly bush is finally getting its act together and producing some blooms. Okay, I had to baby it a little bit; I sprayed all the baby blooms with Neem oil to protect them from insects and then started deep soaking the bush a couple times a week using a big bucket and a drip line. Success! Doesn’t this bloom remind you of the yarn in my new sweater? I probably should give this bush some Miracle Gro too.

I am on fire to get the sweater done by the end of the month, but that probably won’t happen since I need to keep on babying my wrists (which are much better), and life keeps on getting in the way. Still, I am hopeful that the next report on my destash project will be a good one. 50 skeins… I can do it… must stay out of the yarn stores…

It feels like the height of summer with the flowers and the buzz of insects, but there are a lot of crickets and some of the leaves on the trees are starting to turn yellow. The kids in the neighborhood have all returned to school, and it is only a few weeks away from the colors of fall. Yep. Must knit faster!!

Update on the Suburban Wrap:

The wrap arrived safely in California earlier this week and it has already gone to school!

My knitworthy niece is a music teacher, and the wrap traveled to school with her as she met her students this week.

Where it also looks pretty good on my grandniece, who is a student at the school where my niece teaches. How fitting that this wrap should be in a classroom devoted to artistic expression and worn by such knitworthies!

It’s a Wrap!

I have finally finished the Suburban Wrap for my totally Knitworthy niece and popped it into the mail today. Check out this piece of wonderfulness!

I am so happy with the looks and drape of this wrap.

The knitworthy niece showing off her fabulous mitts!! — Do you remember the Knitworthy niece? Here she is flashing the fabulous mitts that I made her last winter. Yep, that it winter in California in the background there. Green grass… how odd! We won’t even talk about that tree trunk next to her!

My niece saw the Suburban Wrap by Joji Locatelli on her facebook feed, shared the post with me, and the rest was history. As soon as I saw it I knew that this was a knit that was calling my name. I dug in the stash, sent her some yarn choices, and after finishing up some works in progress I cast on and got to work several weeks ago.

My niece loves color (did you notice her hair?), and as soon as I showed her this yarn combo it was the one. All of these yarns were already in the stash… win!

This project was just one chunk of fun knitting after another. So much fun, in fact, that I got into a little tendonitis trouble because I knit too long at a time as I raced along to get to the next color section. Lace. Stripes. Textured knitting. An interesting shape and rows that were a manageable stitch count. In other words, everything that a knitter’s heart could want. My project notes on Ravelry are here.

This afternoon I popped the wrap into a box and mailed it off to California where I hope it will be useful in the cool evenings to come. It made my heart happy to send it off. I can’t wait to hear that it has arrived safely.

Then I hit the yarn stash hunting for some yarn, in more sedate colors, to make one for myself.

Knitting Speed Bump

A few weeks ago I went to see my primary care physician for help with shortness of breath and joint pain. I totally scored! I walked out of there with a tetanus shot (fail), inhaled steroids to control my small airway disease (win) and an anti-inflammatory gel to put on my swollen, painful joints (huge win). What a difference to my life these new medications have made. I can breath! I can walk without pain! I can sleep through the night! This is huge, people. Take that Sjogren’s and scleroderma! Feeling so much better I began to spend more hours up and about, and there was a lot more knitting happening too.

I got some socks finished right up. Here are my project notes.

I made a lot of progress on my Suburban wrap and was lured into knitting more than usual because I just had to get into the next section of the wrap. This is such a fun project with lots of color, texture and lace interest. So addictive. So hard to walk away from…

Oops. Then this happened.

One of the problems of getting better is that swelling is going down and the tissue is tightening up on some of my joints. My knees are really tight. My wrists are stiff. When I knit my joints loosen, so I thought I was helping them stay flexible. That is probably true to a certain point, but I guess I now need to be careful to not overdo things. Sigh. I am using the tendons in my left hand the most since I knit continental, and I push the yarn over the needle with my middle finger for each purl stitch. I’m really fast that way, but my tendons have totally rebelled in my left hand and wrist. To make things worse I can’t take NSAIDS or any other anti-inflammatory drug because of my scleroderma-battered kidneys and stomach. Sigh. My doctor ordered a knitting hiatus.

I want to be a compliant patient, really I do. I read a couple of books, managed to get through a couple of days without knitting, and then I snapped. I must knit!! Want knit now!! Knit, knit, knit. Why go on if I can’t knit? Sniff. Obviously this is totally unacceptable and I am going to figure out how to knit in spite of this bad boy wrist. Really, my left hand is the one having trouble, so maybe I can work around that. I tried to tension the yarn in lots of creative ways before I remembered that lots of people on the planet hold the yarn in their right hands. English knitting. I have never mastered purling English style, but now I’m really motivated!

I was in the last striped section of the wrap when disaster struck; stockinette means I have to purl back every other row.

I managed to continental knit with the brace on (okay, it is a little loose) and am moving my left hand very little by working slowly and relying on my right hand.

Working very slowly I am also managing to purl back English style. So slow. So awkward. So much safer for babying rebellious tentons.

Last night I finished the stripes and am ready to enter the last section of garter eyelet. Yay. Knit all the way! I can do this! Then it is into the last, ribbed section of the wrap.

Ribbing. That is going to be slow going. I think that I will check out Norwegian purling. Somehow I need to do this without moving my fingers too much. Yay. A new stitch to learn.

I’m on it!

Take that, scleroderma. You are messing with the wrong knitter!!