Friday, January 02, 2009

2009! We got here!

Time to get back in the saddle, I think. We had a great Christmas and a good New Year. I was touched by all of your good wishes, and reciprocate them heartily. It’s a thoroughly scary year we’re embarking on, but we’ve got President Obama to look forward to, like Hope at the bottom of Pandora’s box.

I don’t want to boast or anything, but I got a Christmas message on paper in the mail from Mel and David. It meant an awful lot to me. It was clever of them to find the address.

The Christmas holiday involved more knitterly news than you might expect. I took Ketki’s sweater along, rather than socks which are my usual travel knitting. I made enormous strides. I was only a couple of inches above the Calcutta Cup band when we set out. I’m awfully pleased with the way it’s looking, and I think Ketki liked it too.


I had twinges of thinking how much Princess I could have achieved, if I had taken that instead. But the Princess isn’t much use for sitting in the kitchen with, while everybody is talking and laughing.

The current socks are Araucania Multi’s for Alexander, and I may abandon them altogether (a) because I discovered, swatching for Ketki’s sweater, that the yarn will felt; and (b) because I was working on them during my most recent appointment at the eye pavilion. I had to stop when some trivial mistake occurred and I couldn’t see to correct it because of the eye drops. Then I went in and saw a dr and learned, for the first time, that the loss of sight in my left eye is permanent.

It wasn’t the socks’ fault, but it has left me feeling less than enthusiastic about them.

James drove us to Loch Fyne on the 23rd. I sat in the back seat and knitted. One drives past Murrayfield as one leaves Edinburgh for the west, and it was kind of exciting to have the sweater in my hands as we did so. That’s where the Calcutta Cup is won and (more often) lost, and that’s where – presumably – it actually is, at the moment. England will almost certainly get it back in the spring. If they fail to, I’ll knit it into the Princess when I sign and date her. That's very unlikely.

We had a big family lunch on the 27th – my husband’s sister and her daughters and some grandchildren converged from Glasgow and Edinburgh and we all went to Loch Fyne Oyster. Delicious, expensive. Our niece F. had knit a sweater for her sister C. as a Christmas present, and C. wore it that day. Noro sock yarn, – F. said, not nice to knit – perfectly plain st st, scoop neck. It looked wonderful, and fit to perfection, the sleeve-set-in seam sitting precisely on the shoulder, the stripes looking deliberate across body and sleeves. F. said she didn’t swatch, and didn’t make any attempt to match the colours when she attached a new ball. She told me the name of the designer – it’s in a book – but I didn’t recognise it, and don’t remember.

19 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:48 AM

    Great to have you back - the sweater looks good too!
    Jenny

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  2. How lovely to hear your news! You obviously needed some time to let others take charge and sound really refreshed.
    Best wishes.

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  3. lovely sweater. and nice to get a christmas greeting by blogfriends in the post. i think the light is returning and i think no year could be worse than 2008 so i am an optimist financial crisis and all.
    and yes i am looking forward to obama too. the only politician i cannot stop listening to whatever subject he is speaking of.

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  4. Good to have you back. Sorry to hear the news about the eye, but it looks like it is not standing in the way of your knitting!

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  5. Best wishes for 2009! It is good to have you back. I missed your daily commentary. I'm genuinely sorry to hear about your sight. I hope it won't get you down.

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  6. Anonymous3:39 PM

    Glad you're back, Jean. You are always missed.

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  7. Happy New Year, Jean - it sounds like you're off to a whopping start on 2009!

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  8. So glad that your holidays were so enjoyable. Bad news about the permanent loss of sight in your left eye.

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  9. Anonymous4:58 PM

    So glad to have my daily Jean fix back! Glad to hear that you are feeling better, and had such a nice holiday!

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  10. How wonderful to have you back again. So glad you had good holidays with the family.

    I second Mary Lou's thoughts. Remember EZ - knit on...

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  11. Anonymous6:50 PM

    Welcome back. Like others, I missed you while you were away but it sounds like it was an enjoyable break which you needed.

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  12. Anonymous9:57 PM

    Hi, Jean - Glad to have you back. I missed your wonderful comments. Sorry to hear about your eyesight. Thank goodness it doesn't seem to affect your knitting too much. Can't blame you for abandoning the socks; makes you wonder if they'd felt just from wear. Have a great 2009 and many Blessings. - Joe, in Wyoming

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  13. Anonymous10:00 PM

    Welcome back, I missed hearing how things were going with you. That's sad news about your eyesight, I hope it won't interfere with finishing Princess. All the best in 2009.

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  14. My spirits lifted when I saw you had posted. Welcome back, Happy New Year!

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  15. Anonymous10:45 PM

    I am very happy to have you back. Sorry to hear of disappointments, but pleased to see successes as well. Happy New Year!

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  16. Anonymous12:16 AM

    very nice to see you posting again.
    for 2009: happiness, lots of interesting/fascinating/warm knitting, and many nice people on your paths.
    sad to hear about your eye, and hope that your other eye will stay as it is.

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  17. Anonymous1:46 AM

    Welcome back. It's amazing how much knitting one can do while staying offline. I'm sorry to hear about your eye. There was a recent article about developments in basic light-dark artificial retinas but it's still experimental.

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  18. I'm glad to hear that the card reached you okay, and that you had a nice holiday. Even though it's not very well manifest, it's nice to know that the sun is on its return to us.

    Eyesight is a bugger to lose, and yet none of us seem to get through life with it fully intact. It's a peculiarity of evolving to survive 30 or 40 years but then being capable of living beyond 100, I suppose. It's a good thing we're such an adaptable species, no?

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  19. Anonymous5:24 PM

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