That sourdough starter needed to be used, right? (Hey look, a personal XKCD cartoon!)

The pumpkin in that last loaf didn’t strongly flavor it but it did help keep it moist from Thursday to Monday–not bad for a no-fat bread. The birthday boy requested cinnamon bread; I used a stronger cinnamon (Penzey’s, not Costco this time) and doubled the amount but kept the pumpkin for the moment, since I need to use that up. It definitely passed inspection. This could get to be a habit.

The seahorse looks much better with eyes now.

The former President of Stanford University died of COVID-19 today.

Suddenly my patience with staying home went right back up again to where it needed to be.

I’m going to go knit another row.

(Photos finally came through.)

I had a general idea and the pieces of the puzzle but not necessarily where they all should be placed. I had to do the first two critters to see how they looked size-wise across the picture before deciding where the others should go.

They’re not finished but close enough.

So today I measured and counted and compared and sketched and tossed and tried to make visual what my fingers knew how to do.

And yeah, I was right that that one bright multicolor would both make the seahorse stand out and let it hide in its seaweed surroundings, being gorgeous and–no. That was a mistake. Or it sort of feels like one so far.

I could scissor out the original, pick up the stitches and reknit that swatch, catching the sides going up and grafting across the top to put in its replacement so you’d never know. In a yarn that wouldn’t put green in the seahorse itself.

Or I could just wait and see and let this whole thing be what it wants to look like when it grows up. And hey, there’s nothing wrong with that seahorse. Although it does require that the fish above it turn out bright, too, and some of the planned yarns won’t cut it for that.

The old Eleanor Roosevelt take on knitting: repeat it and call it a pattern, don’t confess that you didn’t mean to do that.

Besides, I sort of actually did, so here we are.

I’m finally comfortable with getting to the rest of this afghan. I know now what’s going to be next. It was a long time coming.

When you can’t draw and you’re kind of flying by the seat of your pants but you do know that an octopus should have eight arms and trying to pretend one or two of them would be hiding on the other side of it would be cheating. But I had no intention of making the original baby-centric version. No cutesy bug-eyes, either. Those have their place, but I want something that won’t be outgrown.

The very loosely followed pattern is Sea Blanket by ShoeDiva on Ravelry, the yarn is Malabrigo Rios, my favorite worsted, washable merino, needles are US 6/4mm. One bag of Cian colorway was clearly nowhere near enough, sea creatures or no, so a second bag is on order from Imagiknit and I’ll make currents out of the two dye lots.

That waiting and not knowing exactly how what I’ll get will go with what I’ve got has helped slow this project down. That and the million tangling strands per row. There are nine seaweed plants and the tail of a seahorse gripping one of them at the other end.

I couldn’t disappoint Suzanne. So I did get some done today.

It’s the weekend of watching General Conference. Potato-chip knitting time, simple, mindless–definitely not for the distractions of the ocean afghan, and so a cashmere cowl is now most of the way done.

The Tabernacle Choir’s songs are from sessions recorded back when it was safe for them to all be together, and the leaders are meeting in a small theater with no audience and sitting six feet apart. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is currently being led by a former heart surgeon and he acted earlier than most religious leaders in shutting down the meetinghouses and taking the local services online, too.

Two more sessions tomorrow, so I need to choose another skein from the stash.

How do you pick just one?

Blueberry flowers and an imperfectly-lit nighttime photo of how the afghan’s pattern looks spread out, as requested.

There was a note on the neighborhood site yesterday from someone saying that she’d gone to do her grocery shopping and saw an elderly couple sitting in their car, not moving, not getting out, and how they looked was such that she went over to ask them if they were okay.

The place was jammed. (There were reports of three hour lines over at the local Costco.) They were old and vulnerable to exposure and they didn’t dare get out and didn’t know what on earth they were going to do. She was quite happy to go in and do their shopping for them and load up their car, so glad that she was there at the right time so as to be able to help.

There had to be so many others in the same boat…

So she wrote about it to all whom that site might reach, offering a sign-up sheet: who needed help? Who was willing to do the shopping of their neighbors in need so they could stay quarantined?

People answered saying they were in tears. So grateful to her. So grateful to all those signing up to help. So grateful to get to be able to be one of those signing up.

I wanted to pass that idea along.

Testing testing 1 2 3. It looks like we’re finally live again. Go Richard!

I got to meet the mom of a recent recipient of one of my hats today. It was instantly clear why he’s such a delight and I wished she lived closer.

I pulled him quietly aside from the crowd and asked him her favorite color. He knew exactly where I was going with this, and hesitated while looking off in the distance for about three seconds before stating with great certainty, Blue.

Vivid? (Like this?) Or more like, say, indigo?

He gave me a good description of what he had in mind and I wondered what I had in my stash that matched that. She’s flying home tomorrow, but he’s bringing her to church with him before that. Not a whole lot of hours there, much less available for it and certainly no time to go buy the yarn.

I walked in the door at home afterwards, walked into my kid’s old bedroom that has become the yarn stash room–

–and found a super soft hat I’d utterly forgotten I’d made a month or two ago that was in just that kind of a blue. Out of 14 micron merino. Only the best.

At the time, I was wondering why I was wasting my time knitting this when I had the usual queue pressing on me and this was scheduled for nobody, not even me, and I quibbled at the little carry-around but it got on the needles and then I had to finish it to get it off them.

Even the ends are already run in. It’s in a sandwich ziplock in my purse, waiting; all I have to do is show up.

Ever since, I have been marveling at the choreography, once again, of G_d, who knew that needed to come to be and that it needed to be ready and nudged that ball into my purse before an appointment that I don’t even remember what the appointment was for nor which waiting room it was and there you go.

To quote Dana Millbank, who was in the press galley. This was just before the Republicans in the Senate voted to hear no witnesses and see no documents:

I’m never going to be able to think of this as anything but the impeachment blanket. It’s been quite a week, hasn’t it, but at least I got nearly all of this out of all of that.

Remember 1/31 on 11/3.

(Oh and just for fun, today, with appointments on the calendar for next week, we found out we have our first coronavirus case here. Treated at our medical clinic–just like during SARS, when it was California’s epicenter. Don’t touch the elevator buttons with your fingers, yay for tips of canes, and SARS got them to install hand purifiers at every landing.)

All those Senators risking, as is stated at the beginning of each session, imprisonment for leaving the chambers during the proceedings–it’s been reported that quite a few of the Republican ones have been wandering out to the cloakroom. They say it’s hard to sit still. They say the chairs aren’t ergonomic.

Well, okay, so the proceedings do go on and on, sure.

But didn’t you guys bring your knitting? I mean, look at this–I had all of half a diamond done on this when the trial started. My grandmother-in-law knit a wool herringbone jacket during long Congressional hearings where her husband was being grilled years ago. (He was head of a government agency, it came with the job.)

You can’t make anything with fidget spinners, guys!

Cousin John told me about twenty years ago that he was allergic to wool. After his mother’s funeral in May ’18 I gave him a piano hat made of super-soft old-stash Epiphany yarn: royal baby alpaca, cashmere, and silk and no sheep. I’d remembered.

His parents had met playing in the Symphony and he was a gifted musician himself and that keyboard around his head was the perfect design for him. He was in great pain at the loss of his mom, whom he’d been caretaker to, but took much comfort in the offer of that hat and it meant a lot to me to be able to help in any way.

I told him he didn’t have to look for it. But if he did find it not to worry at all about what condition it might be in—I would wash it. He didn’t have to. That was on me. And if I didn’t see it again, that’s okay, just know he had my thanks for all he was doing for our John whom he loved, too.

Monday while I was still in town after the funeral his sister Amy stopped by my mom’s house a few hours before I had to leave for the airport. She didn’t know who had found it nor where but she had the hat, she wanted to make sure I got it, and I think she wanted to see how happy it made me to get it back. So much more personal than popping it in the mail later. (She got a Malabrigo Mecha one, picking a pinks-and-purples colorway and leaving the two blue ones for the mechanic I didn’t know I was going to see the next day.)

All the things that I knit, all the knits that I give away–that one I won’t again. That’s my Blueberry now.

Thank you, Stan out there. And Amy, and I don’t even know who all else to say that to.

So this got started: that’s an instant-gratification swatch from the weekend with the water smushed out of it and the towel there on the footrest straight from the sink. Good enough for measuring where you don’t have to worry about the fit.

But having just finished a project that for weeks took my thoughts when it wasn’t taking my actual time, today I just didn’t touch the new one at all. I had work to do.

My yarn storage is now more organized and the room is straightened up and vacuumed, and I made good headway on that other room, too.

It’s good to know there’s at least one organizing gene in there. It may be recessive but when it’s expressing itself you run with what you’ve got.

After the scouring to get the mill oils out. I get to tell the new parents that it’s already been washed in water too hot to touch.

The answer to the lace pattern pulling the edge pieces upwards after the cast-on: run in the ends only through there, and then again from the other direction. Weigh them down, add the bulk, it’ll straighten them out and make them stay straight–and they did.

And while I was doing that I worked on the back of the join areas to tug down anything sticking out and it worked. Nice and straight now all around.

I didn’t get a good picture of any of that but I did manage to capture the damp afghan in direct afternoon sunlight.

On a political note, should you be interested, my cousin Jim, formerly a Republican and definitely far to the right of me, had a few things to say. 

Turns out, all it needed was for a Great Big Corporation to put me on hold long enough on speakerphone.

It’s not exactly how I’d do it next time but it’s pretty darn snuggly and good. Note to self: I needed to add a pair of plain rows before going into the lace pattern for the separate edging pieces. That’s obvious now and I should have seen it.

Now to go scour the mill oils out in hot water. I will not, however, run it through the dryer and totally fuzz it out–that’s for the parents-to-be to mess with (or not as they choose), I want to present it at its best.

Note to self: two strands dk Cashwool from Colourmart, size 5.5mm US 9 needles, 183 stitches, 51.5″ wide by 62.5″ long after rinsing but before scouring in hot soapy water, and it took 1125 grams (not quite two and a half pounds) to make. My swatch promises it will not shrink appreciably even in the dryer.

(Note: If you click the Show Items: All button in the upper left on the Colourmart page, you can see the sold-out Lavander (their spelling) color that I used to check against the Violet that’s in stock. Mine’s lighter.)

On the left: blocked with nice straight edges that didn’t last, on the right, blocking now.)

Having knit all day Saturday, my hands were not in the mood for working much on that afghan. I felt guilty about taking a break Sunday and Monday and got some done Tuesday. Wednesday, not much. (Plus the news on my cousin kind of took the wind out of me.)

Today I looked at what had to be done and when I needed it done by.

Actually, when I told my husband I felt I had to give it to his cousin on Sunday, his response was, What’s the hurry? Give it to her when the baby gets here.

I prefer to add to the happy anticipation. That and, hey, you, don’t abet my procrastinating, okay?

I realized later that wait, to block the second edge to sew the two of them onto the afghan to wash the afghan to dry the afghan to gift it–meant I had to finish the second edging today. It was about four inches long.

Saturday all over again, with more breaks.

All of which is leading to the question: would you join such a piece to live stitches or cast off ones? I’m leaning towards cast off, just to minimize how far a future broken stitch could run. (I’ve got live ones at the base of the afghan right now, having cut off the original edging, and having it run upwards creates a real mess.)

While I’m at it I think I’ll rip out those purl rows top and bottom of the afghan: the ones along the side don’t really show and those do.

Once I’ve got all that done I should probably knit a very simple edging all around the edging to smooth out those blocking-resistant angles, that instep at the heel of the lace in the edging. Right?

And so the perfectionism and overthinking continues.