Petunia rambles on and on….

to drive to Wilmington to see the eye surgeon.  The eye is doing well.  No flares, no irritation, no redness.  Stay with the meds once a day; come back in 6 months.  Bad eye would be capable of 20/20 – well it sort-of is, if I could get the debris inside to just stay still for a bit!  When I concentrate while trying to read the eye chart, it takes about 15 seconds to read EACH letter, as I wait for the debris to settle to the bottom.  The slight movement of the eye from letter to letter is enough to stir up the muck.  There is retina damage, from all the swelling, and that is permanent, so lines will never be straight.  When I look at an Amsler Grid, I see the complete grid, but the horizontal lines at the center drop down, and the vertical lines shift to the left in the middle.  Really weird, and apparently here to stay.

So after we left there, we went down to Delaware City, and boarded the boat for a trip out to Fort Delaware, a restored Civil War fort on an island in the Delaware River.  We’ve been there before, and I took the kids when they were little.  It was a beautiful day, and perfect for this outing.

There’s information here, a site for the state park.

And tonight, I talked to my oldest, and told him I love him, knowing he’s going to have a long night and probably get little sleep – he’s going in for surgery tomorrow morning, and I’ll feel better when it’s done and over, and he’s on the mend.

WOW!!   Here!!!   On Delmarva!!!

Whoda thunk it?

But we are fortunate to have The Sanquine Gryphon right here on our peninsula.  I must admit that I’ve yet to see her wares.  But I did see that the Yarn Harlot is pleased, mentioning the yarn here and before that, one of her batts is mentioned here.    If the Yarn Harlot says it’s great, well, I’ve got to try it.

And here’s a map of the Eastern Shore Yarn Crab – Crawl, yoinked from her site, with her permission.

 

I live in central Delaware – that’s the area in the middle, the one completely neglected by this yarn crawl -BECAUSE THERE ARE NO DAMN YARN STORES NEAR HERE!!!  Not an LYS to be found in less than an hour. 

Later tonight – a list of all the participating stores – all the addresses.  Get your GPS out and ready to program!

I’m off to the eye surgeon AGAIN.  Let’s see what he’s got in store for me this time!

I’m a book freak.  I always have been!  As an 8-year-old, I had to have 2 baskets on my bicycle, one on either side of the back tire, for transporting books back and forth to the library.  Even then, I read almost as much non-fiction as fiction.  When I found a novel that I liked, well, on the next trip to the library, I was looking for non-fiction to give me background on that time or place.  I’ve got a long history of being weird.   This wasn’t any problem, as the books went back to their own house in two weeks.  And as an adult with some discretionary income and the grocery money to spend, I continue to show a fine appreciation for non-fiction, reference books designed to increase my knowledge and skills, every damn craft book I see!   (Now that was a quote from the dear husband, who, having carried my “library” in and out through several moves, is entitled to express his opinion, however wrong it may be). 

I’ve dabbled in several “crafts” over the years, but always ones that are textile related in some way.  I mean, I never did oil-paintings, or stained-glass windows, or sculpture.  I’m not a gardener, although I did grow and then can tons of tomatoes in my time.  But that wasn’t craft for amusement.  That was to feed the kids lots of cheaply made spaghetti sauce over cheap-to-buy pasta!  For a long time, I was heavily into counted cross-stitch, reproducing antique samplers, and did cut- and drawn or open-work.  Taught myself to do Hardanger (see illustration below).

Most have never heard of Hardanger work, done on even weave fabric.  First you do all the embellishments, then you cut all the holes in the fabric with very fine, very pointy, very dangerous little scissors.  Very nerve-wracking when you’re a beginner!   For these crafts, I acquired an enormous amount of reference books.  Still, it was bearable, and we could live with it.

When I went into my Quilting Phase, though, the book collection of wonderful and necessary reference books grew by leaps and bounds.  A whole bookcase of books and quilting magazines.  And color theory books, and crazy quilt books, and Baltimore Album quilt books.  Oh, my, it got bad.   And when I upgraded my sewing machine to one that would do big embroidery patterns, then I started collecting embroidery patterns, too.    And we had to get more shelves in my sewing room, to hold all the books.

AND NOW —-  I’m in my Knitting Phase.  This one has lasted quite a few years now.  Oh, I was taught as a child, but did more crochet over the years than knitting.  I was taught cabling and colorwork and many of the techniques beyond just knit and purl.   And I thought I knew how to knit.

Well, what I’ve found out, over the last few years in my old age, is just exactly how little I knew, despite what I may have thought.  And it seems that with each book I buy or read about on the internet, I just continue to add to my list of things I need to learn, or at least, to get much better at.

And now, my thoughts are going in two directions.  The book Knitting in the Old Way made a big impression on me – the concept of people knitting from their heads and their hearts, rather than relying on printed directions, made sense to me.  My grandmother could not read or write in English or in her native language, but she knit beautiful sweaters.  Whether she sized by comparing her work to existing sweaters, or just had an eye for EZ-esque proportions and percentages, I’ll never know, but without reading skills, she was a skilled knitter.   Hmmm, this concept caused me to buy read more on “native” knitting techniques from all over the world – the internet being my downfall here – How in the hell would any of us have heard about Latvian mittens or Cowichan sweaters without the internet?  Pretty unlikely, I’ll bet!   (or that Norwegian Hardanger embroidery, too!)   And Ganseys!!   Arans!!   All that patternwork.

The other direction is colorwork.  I’ve done it.  A few times.  It came out, well, acceptable.  Maybe even “acceptable” is being very kind.  It was recognizable as a duck or a word or a pattern.  But the damn internet is getting me again.  I’m looking at beautiful colorwork, Scandinavian sweaters.  Fair Isle!  Go here:  http://woolyewe.blogspot.com/    Look at the work!  Look at the color!   Imagine the time it took to get that good.

And so I look at my skills, and the internet shows me the skills of others, and I’m getting dissatisfied when I compare the two.  There’s a hell of a gap.  And I’m hoping to use the dissatisfaction to my benefit, to spur me on to do what is necessary to improve my skills.  With that in mind, I placed an order with KnitPicks for quite a few co-ordinating colors of Wool of the Andes.  With the cold months ahead, I hope to make winter caps with colorwork, and I’ve got loads of books with simple Scandinavian-looking patterns.  Sure, some may go to the family, the grandchildren, but I’m also thinking about charity knitting.   One or two charities I’ve read about on Ravelry that caught my interest. The WotA is affordable for this end, and I think working with wool is best for improving my abilities.

But here’s the catch.   I’ve got a shitload of projects started.  Not finished.  Languishing.  Taking up space.  Some need to be finished, some need to be frogged, some need to be tossed.  And I need to deal with this problem.  Or, well, maybe I can put it off. 

NO   NO   NO   So I bribed myself.   I’ve got this big box right here, so close I can touch it.  And in it is all the beautiful colors of Wool of the Andes, oh, maybe 15 different colors,  AND 2 books.  Damn KnitPicks had that book sale, ya know.  40% off, and I can’t resist sales.

And I’m not gonna open that box until 8 UFO’s have had “decisions” made as to what needs to be done – and then I’ve gone and done it.

And the box is whimpering and begging.   And I can hear the wool.