Hot summer laziness has really set in around here. We pretend to be doing useful things, especially in the yard, but we take ample time for breaks to cool off indoors, drink a little water, or just float in the pool watching the clouds go by. It is hard to get ambitious about anything much.
I have been reflecting, as I laze about, on how easy it is too fall into routines, to take things for granted, and to just do things without really thinking about what you do. I have been knitting a little here and there, without really thinking about it much, both of my current projects are very simple and it is much to hot to weave in wool yarns on Wine&Roses now. Even doing easy projects mistakes are made.
As noted last time, I had to drop down a couple of stitches on the Phildar shell to correct the error when I made the two new stitches to form the center stockinette panel. Now, I "know" how to do a lot of different techniques for increasing and decreasing, making stitches, casting on, binding off, etc., but I have frankly never really thought about how I make stitches, especially making more than one at a time. Thanks May, for reminding me that thinking about things while we do them is such a useful habit. Although I have used many different techniques for different aspects of knitting, more often than not however, i just pick up a couple of knitting needles, grab the yarn of choice, and start without really thinking about what I am doing. As a result I tend to fall back on the same techniques over and over again. Most of the time this works. Sometimes it doesn’t. I should pay more attention, take more pride in my work. I used to be more attuned to increasing my skills, intentionally taking on projects that were new or difficult in order to master new techniques. Mostly now I just knit to have something to do with my hands or calm my nerves. There must be a happy medium somewhere.
A little error recovery was also required on the sock project. I lost my mind about 6 rows back and purled one quarter of a round. I dropped the stitches down and reknit them today. This took a little more concentration than my heat addled brain really wanted but I managed to get through it. I had to take the bifocals off and put the reading glasses on, I couldn’t get my head positioned so I could see those tiny stitches I dropped through my normal glasses. Sitting outside with my close-up glasses on was fine for the knitting, but the red and yellow blurs flying around were somewhat disconcerting. I bird that looks perfectly innocuous when you can see it well enough to identify it looks somehow different when it is an amorphous flash of color buzzing by your head.
The knitting and I are back inside, recovering from the heat. The knitting projects have migraines and are resting in the dark:
