I shall watch his every move.

I shall see him.

because

I did not know he was being targeted

And I am sorry.

I did not know he was in danger.

And I am sorry.

I did not know.

And I am sorry.

I shall see him

and I shall help.

The join on my second swatch is practically invisible.

There’s also a really noticeable line of looser stitches on one side of the ribs – maybe I’m just out of practice, or maybe because it’s acrylic?   Acrylic is a lot less forgiving of poor technique and tension.

I think that for future uses of this provisional cast on I should use a thicker waste yarn – I think it might be easier to pick up the provisional edge.     So – maybe frog the whole thing and start over?  I’m pondering it.

This picture is of the first swatch for this scarf — cast on with the provisional, knit a few rows, cast off, picked up the provisional, knit a few rows, cast off.   The jog where the cast on was is clearly visible.  The yarn is Caron One Pound acrylic, the colorway is Ocean.

And this is the main project cast on – the cast on is still visible, and I’ve completed one repeat of the cable pattern.    The pattern suggests picking up the cast on now and knitting the ribbing, so I may do that – or I may work more pattern length.   To put off deciding, I’m blogging about it.  The waste yarn I’m using is visible at the bottom, ends tied together to anchor it.   It’s a #10 mercerized cotton from my stash – sheer coincidence that the color matches.

https://catbookmomsyarns.blogspot.com/2007/09/plaited-cables-seamans-scarf_14.html

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/plaited-cables-seamans-scarf

Very little of this material is dated,  but two of these pieces (Circles, and It Couldn’t Last)  are typewritten,  which means I most probably wrote them the summer I was 13, while staying with my grandparents in Wyoming while the rest of the family moved from Wyoming to Illinois.    The untitled tanka is from a school project on poetry – a little volume demonstrating different forms.   Other poems in the handwritten volume reference the Horned One and the Lady of Sea,  placing the writing somewhere between the summer ’84  when I first encountered goddess spirituality while searching for books by Andre Norton, and ’89,  when I got my first typewriter.

It Couldn’t Last

Laughing in love,

saying words we neither meant.

If time in love is wasted,

it was wasted time well spent.

Circles

Circles circumscribe the world.

Red slashed for no, green lit for go,

and foiled latex assuring save sex.

Coffee mugs, and water jugs,

the throat the killer throttles.

The needle, pill, the cigarette,  and of course the bottles.

Sugar cookies, ice cream cones,

smiley faces, aerodomes.

With each life take, each baseball hurled

another circle round the world.

Untitled

Blue sky high above.

Quite bright sun glowing high up.

Birds’ shadows darting

across the ground.   Dark, smooth like

stones skipping across the water.

And the sweater:

  Some assembly required.   5 skeins of golden brown, two of white,  100% wool, and so old that the labels are just ‘ounces of worsted’, with no yardage.    Roughly estimating 150 yards per skein,  that gives me just over a thousand yards,   enough for a small sweater.   I’m thinking colorwork in the yoke, maybe at the cuffs.

One may read the original text of here, courtesy of the University of Toronto libraries.     The goodly and honest readers at Librivox.com  offer a fine reading of W.A. Neilson’s prose translation,  the text of which  can be found here, courtesy of the York University, also in Toronto.

May you one and all have a wonderful holiday season, blessed with friends, family, frivolity and cheer!

The tea is Yunnan Sourcing’s 2014 Red Horse GongTing, a shou puerh that I picked up a couple of mini-cakes of back in February,  mostly because the wrapper was adorable.   It’s an easy drinking tea,  with a dark dark liquor,   and gentle hay/very faint rose/lavender kind of thing going on.    Predominantly smooth aged hay, with just this almost not there floral hint.    Per YS, the floral note should come out more as the tea ages,   and I’ll crack the second cake probably sometime next year to compare to my current tasting notes     I’m also playing with brewing times and temps,  looking for the sweet spot for this tea.   Haven’t found it quite yet.   This is cup was brewed for about 2-3 minutes with water straight from the kettle,  10g of tea to 20 oz of water, with the leaves rinsed twice before brewing with the ‘getting boiled’ water in the kettle.

And that is what I  am doing this evening.  Some tea, and knitting.