Process of elimination

Today I decided that even if I have only one set of sock needles free, I have GOT to cast on a new round of emergency knitting.  So I went to my Vesper Sock bin to see whether I had any more kits set up - a skein caked, then divided into two equal-sized cakes, all ready to cast on - and panicked!  I could only find one.  Then I realized there were more, underneath all the new skeins I haven't addressed yet.  Ahem.  Five in total, and how do I choose?

They're all beautiful.


This has been a very bumpy week.  And it started off so well, too.  By the end of Sunday I'd purchased all the lights for the house, a necessary and urgent job because the wiring is nearly done and my window of opportunity is fast closing for moments like

Oh! I want a sconce there, or

Yikes! I can't find a fixture that kicks out enough light and isn't hideous, so can we wire for two ceiling lights in a row here and I'll buy this nice dim one? 

And believe me, this is the sort of thing that comes up.  We needed:

Entry hall lighting (overhead and matching sconce)
Lots of hall lighting (very flush to the ceiling)
Stairwell sconces plus a large matching ceiling fan with no light in it
Something very special for the living room ceiling
Bedroom ceiling lights, plus my office ceiling light
Sconces for the master bedroom and the office
A hall ceiling light that works with the master bedroom ceiling and sconce lights
And complementary table lamps for the living room and master bedroom.

I don't know why I thought that was not worth budgeting for in advance.  Once I started pricing lights I realized that this list, plus the kitchen light I'd already found and the dining room lights we've already paid for, adds up to about $6000 Canadian if we're lucky, so you'd better believe I was hunting for steep discounts! 

I put in about 4 hours a day on weekdays, and 8 on weekends, for about a month just looking at online lighting stores, and magazines, and the websites of brick and mortar stores and trying to find lights we

a/ did not hate

b/ could afford

c/ would play nicely together, at least within sight of each other.

It was a VERY hard task.

I think I don't want to knit anything too bright right now - better to save those warm, summery colours for a dreary winter day.  Down to four?


Anyway I can't tell you what a lift I got when I clicked Place Order on the last of the lights!  We got great deals, and we loved everything we chose.  The hall lights especially were massively discounted, very close to the ceiling, and GORgeous, combining black and gold and white and leaving us free to add some gold touches with other lights.  Branching out to gold really expanded our shopping options.

But on Tuesday I got an email to say they had been DISCONTINUED.  And the manufacturer was entirely out of stock.

Which meant our matching gold lights didn't really make sense any more.  Especially the ones that were also discontinued!  My matching desk lamps were on that list, and the bedside lamps, and the super elegant, totally perfect living room lamps.

So I had to start over.  I nearly cried.  I bought a strudel, too.  I mean I mostly don't care about lights beyond, do I have enough of them to see my knitting?  But when you get to spending so much on a whole-home renovation like this, it's just sad to have to finish it off with very basic lights you bought last-minute at the hardware store like you didn't have any creative spark left in your whole body.  Just, ugh.

The orange one is perfect for Halloween, so I should cast that on no later than August, but we're still in May.  I think it can wait a bit.  We're in the car a lot in the summer, going to and from the cottage, I will knit socks faster than usual.


Back at my post looking for lighting, I noticed a few other things going wrong, too.  And they all seemed to take up a ton of time.  Did you notice I didn't get to post anything here on Wednesday?  I sure did.  I was so swamped all day that it wasn't till after 11pm I was finally free to choose between writing and sleep.  I picked sleep.

After a couple of days I decided we don't need to worry about table lamps right now.  All that really matters is the stuff Ray will be hard-wiring onto ceilings and walls for us.  So I decided we should splurge on the only other light fixture I liked for a hallway that wasn't $500, wincing when I realized how the numbers add up when you need 4 of a light, no matter how 'affordable' it might be.  And then I went on with other things, realizing with a slow erosion on my once-again cheery mood that an eye-catchingly odd black and white design may look sharp in most hallways, but will probably jar against the muted tones I was hoping to do in our bedroom.  We used to have an actual door between the bedroom and the hall that leads to the master bath which would have eliminated this problem, but with the framing and everything it was going to be super narrow and the door would have covered part of a window when left open.  It was just a bad idea.  So Ray and I decided it should go, and he cut out all that framing, and now it's all wide open with a clear sightline to that high contrast ceiling light. 

I'm still struggling with how to make this situation work better.  Change the bedroom lights?  Hang a curtain?  Do a different hall light there?  Wait and see how it all looks installed, and fix it if it really is a problem?  I have no clue.

That third yarn had SO much blue.  I think I want something more intriguing.  This red and purple stripe has chartreuse and brown in it, which will be very exciting to watch unfold, and the green one looks like a science experiment. 

I might have to do Eenie Meanie Minie Moe on this one.  I am all decisioned out.


Hope you guys have a great weekend and I'll see you on Monday!