Friday, October 8, 2010

Weekend knitting

For we Canadians, this weekend is Thanksgiving. And as if we didn't have enough to be thankful for, the week that started out horribly cold and damp and grey has given way to seasonally-appropriate warmth and sunshine and crisp red, yellow, and orange leaves everywhere you look and step.

It's a good time to have three days off, even if you just found out your Achilles tendon is hurty because it has microtears in it and the physio you had yesterday made your leg so achy you don't even want to think about nature walks in the nubbly green tweed cardi that would have been finished by now if you didn't keep getting distracted by other projects.

But we won't talk about the Carrot Cardi today.

Instead I would like to recommend bringing some knitting with you to doctor's appointments not just to knit, but to clutch when treatments get nasty. Turns out the fastest way to heal an Achilles tendon is to use acupuncture, so I said Yes! even though I have a natural aversion to things being pressed through my flesh. I figured, it's in my calf, and I don't have to look at it - how bad can it be? and it wasn't really. Just bad enough that I was grateful to have some sock yarn in a Japanese linen bag in my fist.

After the needles were in and the electrodes were hooked up, I discovered I would be remaining in this state for ten minutes, so I asked my physiotherapist to kick her stool over in front of the table I was lying face down on so I could rest my knitting bag there. And then I propped my chin up and knit for the duration.

Okay, I can't really not talk about the Carrot because I've been abstaining from socks as long as I'm at home so as to give it lots of love and attention. And I do love knitting this sweater. If it didn't have shaping that requires just a little more attention than I can give to pure travel knitting, I would have two of them finished and being worn right now, it's that nice.

In fact it's so nice, I'm noticing Other Sweaters. Sweaters I might like to fill the guilt void that will be left when the Carrot is finally done. Which is sort of a problem because there is a high risk I will start such a sweater before the Carrot is done.

My biggest problem is Hannah Fettig's Mariner Pullover, featured on the cover of Interweave Knits Weekend 2010.

I was waiting for this one to hit the stands because I saw a preview of the patterns in it and they are pretty great, but when I sat down with it later I found my eyes wandering back to various other perspectives on Mariner.

I tried, I really did. I mean, what's not to love about the lushly cabled Olivier Pullover by Coralie Meslin?

(which reminds me, has anybody else fallen truly madly deeply for Beatnik in the current issue of Knitty? I suppose it would be tempting fate to try to morph these two sweaters together so as to combine the yarn of one and the neck of the other and so on. Really it would be much more sensible just to make both.)

And check out the adorable Trellis Socks that Katya Frankel designed, which I bet would be fantastic in one of my four-colour striped yarns from Knitterly Things.


But nothing seems to be putting Mariner out of my mind. I think I want it in exactly the yarn it was designed with, too. Maybe I'll put that on my Christmas list and hurry up with finishing the Carrot, so Santa will figure I've been good enough this year to rate another handknit sweater for next.

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