Rain, blessed rain this morning, 1.57″ at our house and over twice the forecast, an inch officially in the area overall.

Then at nine pm we realized that the lights weren’t coming on on the mango tree and it turned out the outside GFI circuit must have been rained on. Reset. We’re going to have to watch that this winter.

But even without the lights, damp soil helps hold in the warmer temperature of the day far better than dry and that and the frost cover (carefully anchored with rocks at the ground, no gaps) were helping hold in the heat even when none was being added: by ten degrees’ difference from the outside air.

Meantime, I spent an hour and a half–just like I did on Saturday–knitting, ripping, knitting, ripping, doing the math, proving it by making those stitches–and ripping again. Dang. I inwardly warned said project that it was in danger of being Dorothy Parkered.

I guess I scared it. At long long last I saw the rookie error in my math (and I’d had the number right the fourth time, too, darnit, even if I’d had the why wrong) and I got it right. The pattern worked.

May I stop here and give a shout-out to Karida Collins at the Neighborhood Fiber Co. I was using her Penthouse silk, which is a 2-ply spun not too tightly; it’s very soft. There’s always a tradeoff between softness and durability: adding twist makes a stronger yarn but it also adds friction that translates to a rougher hand. I way overspun a bit of rabbit fluff once and made it feel like rough burlap just to prove it could be done.

And yet this luscious yarn totally held up to being ripped out I know six and I think seven times, six fairly long rows’ worth, again and again and again and throw in several more agains and it still looks good enough to photograph for publication.

It was so compelling to me to knit it exactly right. This one’s for the whole world. Karina’s gorgeous handiwork deserves that.