Seriously..... Well-rested IS required !

Dear Cynthia,

I am so glad you'll be in my neighborhood during the next couple of weeks, and there are plenty of yarn establishments to choose from in the south-eastern Wisconsin area so we will not end up at the place which has yarn in East Troy.

I hope you know that I publish messy kitchen photos and pictures of my stash more as therapy for myself than for any other reason. I don't know why, but it motivates me. I don't want to spend too much time analyzing it, however, because addictive issues I might have regarding yarn might surface, and I don't want any kind of evidence lurking around in some therapist's notes.

We all survived the water park, some better than others. After spending a few hours in the ER last night, DH received confirmation that he broke one of his toe bones, and so he'll have to be more careful and keep it taped to another toe for a while as it heals, but his toe joints all looked good, so if a person is going to break a bone, that is probably the way to go.

I got one of the sleeves of my Blackberry Ridge Nubby Yarn cardigan finished. (Note: Blackberry Ridge is having an open house next Saturday, and in your pursuit of nice lace weight yarn....just sayin'.) I also closed the hole in the underarm on the drive home from the water park. It's a four-inch seam; two inches of it looked fine, the other two inches of it were bugging me, so I decided to rip it out. I'm distressed to mention that it looked much worse before it looked any better...ahem. I'll digress: While I was making the Fana cardigan a couple of months ago, I had a rule about cutting steaks, which was that it must be done while sober and well-rested, and fortunately for the Fana (and my sanity), all ended well in that instance. Not so with the nubby sweater. Though I was sober last night, I was NOT well-rested, and somehow ended up cutting through a knit stitch, instead of cutting the yarn I used to sew the hole closed. And so, the two edge stitches for several rows at the top of the sleeve ravelled (or is it "un-ravelled"?). Aaugh! That's what I get for not following my own rules. 45 minutes later, I was able to achieve a look I could live with on the outside. The inside had about nine loose ends to weave in, though I'm not sure where all of them came from. But now, I think that all ends have been secured.....the same way I sometimes think that I can go a whole week without doing laundry..... We'll see.

However, and even more distressing, I have to tell you that none of this matters. I've tried on the sweater several times during the past few months, and finally today, I faced reality when I decided that I have to rip it out, the whole sweater. I didn't think about the thickness of the bulky weight yarn when I did my calculations while designing this sweater, and it is just too snug for me, and though I've sensed this all along, today I finally decided that I will be much happier with this sweater if it is a few inches larger around. And so, my ball winder and I are just going to have a little party in the next few days..... Sigh..... That's how it goes with the creative process once in a while.....

In good news, I am not allergic to wool! I have contact dermatitis to nickel, and the doc thinks that I might want to check my metal needles to see if they have some nickel content which could have been contributing to some of the issues I was having with the skin on my knuckles. Interesting, because I don't hold the needles with my knuckles....but I suppose they are in the vicinity. Mostly I'm relieved about the wool thing. I guess this all means that I can't get a dog since I'm allergic to them, but I could get a sheep, right?

Warm regards,
Laura (aka YarnThrower)