Jiggedy-jog

Home again, home again, jiggedy-jog,

Home again, home again, sleep like a log.

The first line is a well-known rhyme from I have no idea where; the second is my own addition based on real-world experience.  We have been home for five days and it's been unusually crazy ever since.  It almost seemed like the universe was punishing me for leaving the house, but as I've answered all of the frantic MUST RESPOND NOW! telephone messages one at a time I found that most of them were based on poof! nothing.  Or easily remedied.  Or were notices that a check was coming in the mail, which is always a welcome bit of news.

We were scheduled to have an eye doctor's appointment this morning, but yesterday morning they called to ask if we could come in yesterday afternoon, and we did.  We were practically the only patients in the office and everything happened smoothly and quickly.  My doctor said that my eyes are in young shape for my age (!) and that I'd need to get new lenses for my glasses.  The Emperor, newly sprung from his macular degeneration treatment, was given permission to get new glasses that he's needed for at least two years.  Despite the huge outlay of cash (I was ready for it) we were in a celebratory mood, and went home for naps to help get rid of the eye-numbing and dilating drops.  By evening, I was able to knit while we watched a mystery movie.

Knitting... ah, knitting.  While we were 'Way Out West, I visited the Amazing A-- and made a large yarn purchase in her shop.  I laid in three skeins of sock yarn, picked up an interesting single skein of an ombre laceweight, and two sturdy laceweight/sockweight skeins to use for making Regency-style coin purses.  I also picked up two sets of Chiao-Goo bamboo sock needles (my favorites) and one set of Brittany Birch size 0 DPNs, plus the right circular needle for the Whitecaps Cowl.  Aside from the retail therapy, it was a good visit.  A-- and I had a good gab with our lunch, some tea, and a few bites of shortbread -- and some knitting.

My travel knitting for this trip consisted of the Emperor's Christmas sock, the Whitecaps Cowl, and Jupiter.  I worked on the cowl until I ran out of one of the yarns, and then discovered that despite my efforts to adequately prepare for the trip, I had left the second ball of cotton behind -- at least I hoped I had!  I thought I'd packed it, and spent some time searching for it.  At any rate, I tried to work on Jupiter, but I've hit the most complicated part of the pattern, the do-this-and-at-the-same-time-do-that section of the raglan decreases.  I had made a narrative chart to get through it, but when I tried to use it I discovered that it was inadequate.  I made a new one, but somehow didn't save it correctly so lost hours worth of work before I could create a PDF and put it on KnitCompanion.  I put Jupiter aside for the time being, and worked on the sock.

While at A--'s shop, I discovered a more "manly" color of Berroco Sox than what I had on the needles for the Emperor's Christmas sock.  Let me say here that the Emperor loves his socks no matter what color I make for him, and he doesn't have any gendered-color hang ups; he has requested wild color swings and purple stripes in the past, and he wears whatever I knit for him and even brags about them.  That said, the color combination that I was formerly working on exactly matched one of my outfits, and I was in proximity to a huge number of great new skeins -- and I fell for it.  As a result I have put the other one aside and have started yet again, this is the third time this year, socks for the Emperor.   Unlike my other attempts, these are going quickly.  Part of the problem was with needles, and I got myself into this one with eyes open.

 Last year, I got to see the Yarn Harlot talk, and she did a picture with my sock.  She then put it in its bag and zipped it up, and I have put that sock aside to knit on when I badly need a Comforting Knit.  But that action put my favorite needles out of commission.  I started the Flower Power socks on my other set of favorite needles, and later set them aside to make the Emperor's Not-Too-Secret Christmas Socks in June.  To get these under way, I held my nose and visited the LYS and got a set of Takumi bamboo needles.  They're nice needles, but so sharp that they frequently split the yarn, slowing me down.  Thus my purchase of new sock needles at A's shop.  I transferred the sock to the new needles and my speed immediately picked up.  Then, I changed my mind about the yarn, but I didn't want to just pull the needles out because I had made too much progress to just frog them.  That's why I made that additional purchase of sock needles.

This is all rather ridiculous.  I do not need four sets of "favorite" sock needles.  I could have put one or more pairs on stitch holders, or on other needles, but I didn't.  I also didn't need to lay in a new pile of sock yarn, because I have a bunch of skeins in the stash and I don't knit socks as quickly as I used to, because of my work commitments.

Did I show you this?  I bought it at the Fancy Tiger in Denver over three years ago.  When I've finished Jupiter, I will sew this into the back of the collar, lest I ever forget how long the knitting took.

You know what else took forever?  After trying unsuccessfully for two days to get images into this blog post, I finally used Firefox to get in and insert the pictures.  Just for the record, I hate Firefox but even more, I hate that computer geeks try to force me to use it.  "Update" is just a fancy word for "the end of productivity" and "everything you knew yesterday is wrong today."  Forgive the whine; I'm not thrilled with the direction that computers are going in, but I don't see a way out.  Yet.