Just finishing up ball 7 of 19 and the piece is getting heavy. The colour is very hard to photograph - none of the pictures I've put up even remotely resembles the actual hue. It's much more intensely mossy in real life.
I've had stacks of problems with the edge chart, but have frogged nothing. I simply don't have time to back up on this one. The chart has two or three mistakes in it, and I am completely unhappy with how the bights are opened and closed within the reverse stockinette. So, I have had to make some changes and do some experimenting on the fly, which means one end of the blanket will look quite different to the other.
I have a different feeling about this blanket, though...it's not like my other knitting projects. The mistakes and inconsistencies are inconsequential - what I'm knitting here is just life as we know it. We get through it as well as we can with no do-overs, and hope that by the end what we have is nice, and comforting, and will help others remember us with fondness despite the obvious imperfections.
Knitting this blanket has been hard. It gets harder with every ball I join in, with every day that passes to bring us all closer to the crisis. Sandy's surgeon phoned last night to tell her the biopsy results were in and the tumour is indeed cancer, though it is "young" and does not appear to have metastisized. He has upgraded (downgraded) her case to urgent, so as soon as Victoria has room for her, she will be travelling down for her week of radiation prior to surgery.
We're not ready -- not me, with my 7-balls-down-12-too-go, not my friend with the job she has just started, and a young family, and not you, with the little bits of life that flow over you and around you every day. We have little triumphs and little disappointments, aggravations and celebrations, and then when we're only midway through all we've got planned, our mortality walks straight up to us and stares us in the face.
I can't handle it. So for now I'm just going to keep knitting, and hope to be done in time.
3 comments:
Oh my dear Shan,
We are all here, knitting silently alongside you, hands at the ready to hold you, your knitting, whatever needs to be held.
So much more to say, but really how does one say it? All we can do is think wellness and light and love.
Shan,
this whole experience , your dear friend, the need to create and with that creation, to protect - it is all so very intense... not to mention that this slippery ice we walk upon, seemingly is all the more delicate in your world... just makes the whole task so imminent. But take heart - it looks beautiful - your work and energy will be passed on and Sandy will only gain strength and health from all of the ying and yang stitches...
Oh, how sad and how brave at the same time. I finished an aran sweater for my brother when he had his stroke, trying with every stitch to knit his brain and body back into perfect shape. Your blanket will be valued and will give hope and love. what a gift.
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