Monday, September 07, 2015

Here's what happened with the Sous Sous, deduced after much anxious thought:

When I laid it aside last time, I was at the point where the shoulder shaping begins. When I resumed last week, I didn't start shaping the shoulders. Instead, I repeated the last instruction: “Work rows 1-14 again”.

With the results a) that I inserted almost a whole extra repeat; and b) that the first “work rows 1-14 again” left me with an incomplete cable crossing. The pattern is 16 lines long, and the final two finish off the cabling.

So after much thinking and consulting of Ravelry and deciding to frog back somewhat and then knit the smaller size as far as repeats were concerned and worrying about the side seams if I shortened the back and couldn't figure out how to shorten the front – after all that, I actually looked and saw the extra repeat and all became clear.

“Look at your knitting”, EZ said.

So I have frogged, and am proceeding with the pattern as written. It will be very slightly longer than specified. I am now happily decreasing for the shoulders, four stitches at the beginning of every row – the effect should very soon make itself felt. Here's a link to the Ravelry page if you've forgotten what it looks like. You'll understand my anxiety about the front when you see it.

I'm getting on fine with Flipboard, at least more or less fine, as a substitute for Zite. They're very fond of the Harlot, so I'm reading her regularly. She had a piece recently about the great pleasure to be had, reserved for knitters, when you unravel something and knit it up again and reach the point where you are knitting with new yarn instead of unravelled yarn. She expresses it better than that. Anyway, I haven't got there yet.

But I hope to this evening. I am sure the only thing to do at this point is to finish the back before I go on to anything else.

Science

Darwin himself, I gather, wondered about speciation, although the word hadn't been invented yet and he didn't even have a word for genes. He wondered why, if his theory was right, we never seemed to find species in the process of transition, either in nature or in fossils. All of us seem to be happily settled in the species we were born into.

I've read a bit more Dawkins but he gets more and more irritating. At the moment he is explaining to me about carbon dating – apparently creationists don't believe in it. Increasingly I feel that an Oxford professor ought to have more pressing demands on his time than constructing elaborate arguments against the patently absurd. I am reading “The Greatest Show on Earth”.

He promises to demolish “intelligent design” while he's at it, and I will struggle on far enough to find out what he means by that.

Wedding

This week is it. If they send my husband home, I'll have to bite the bullet and welcome him. By this time next week, I think I could reasonably say, Can't he stay here over the weekend so that I can go to the wedding?

12 comments:

  1. Please, please, let it be that you can go to the wedding (ball): you deserve at least that for your years of patience.

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  2. I second the comment from above. You really deserve to go to the wedding/ball.

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  3. skeindalous12:27 PM

    Make it happen! Declare that you are going to the wedding! We will all cheer.

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  4. Hmmmm. Maybe some insight will be revealed this week that will give clarity regarding your husband's homecoming and the wedding. I do place a lot of hope in the unknown, the "stuff" that is out of my control. Hope.
    Wasn't EZ a wonder? I see her referred to by so many online knitters. I might watch the knitting workshop DVD while I work on my alpaca vest. Her voice is great knitting accompaniment.
    I like reading about your knitting and the way you figure things out.

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  5. Oh isn't that a relief? Much less irritating than that the gauge is way off and the pattern doesn't work right and, and...I just finished a linen sweater of my own design that I misread some numbers and didn't quite get gauge. It is drapey, so it will be ok, but really, I should know better. Fingers crossed for the wedding.

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  6. Anonymous2:04 PM

    Maybe you going to the wedding should now be built into the planning-mention it to the powers that be at the hospital.

    Or would that just jinx it?

    Beverly in NJ

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  7. Another vote for the wedding. Cheers.

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  8. I'm glad you figured out the Sous Sous. Ripping back won't seem quite so tedious now that you know what went wrong, and that it won't be a problem making it right.

    I'm another voice chiming in to say go to the wedding. You can explain to the medical staff that you have had this planned, and that you will be available to care for your husband as soon as you get home. I'm sure they will take it into consideration. After so long in the hospital, being there a few extra days isn't going to matter to them. And they can't send him home to an empty house!

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  9. Anonymous6:24 PM

    Any sense of when the care team is in place for your husband's possible return?
    If the help is not ready my unsolicited opinion is that he needs to stay where he is to be covered by the 24-hour care. Are there rehab options between hospital and home care?
    The wedding seems very socially and emotionally important. I too hope you can enjoy it in person.
    LisaRR

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  10. Perhaps it might be possible to line up Plan B, in the form of one of your children, to stay with your husband in case the care team is able to start. I remember that James covered for the last wedding and it gave you a much-needed break.

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  11. Hugs to you. I'm in the wedding camp. Setting up and figuring out things under the new setup for your husband will take all of your time. You as the primary caregiver have the right to say "Wait." If need be, enlist your childrens' support for having the time. The medical staff should understand the importance for your being at your niece's wedding.

    I agree that Dawkins can get shrill. Unfortunately for some people the need for a divine source to explain the unexplainable will always be there.

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  12. Here's a NY Times article about a couple doing research on evolution in Darwin's finches in "real time" http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/science/in-darwins-footsteps.html?_r=0 .

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