I took a break from knitting Branden’s sweater last week to do a little spinning in preparation for the next project. I have some Shetland lambswool in a beautiful oatmeal color, that has been just dying for a project to go with it.

I bought the fiber at Greencastle about a year ago now, (was that only a year ago??), intending for it to be a sweater for Branden, but lately it’s been calling my name instead. Last week, I  spun up a couple of bobbins of singles, but then couldn’t decide whether I wanted a 2 or a 3-ply. So I did something unusual for me (in spinning, at least). I actually spun up a sample of yarn!

(I know…it’s just like a swatch, and I don’t know why I never do it, but for whatever reason I just don’t. Until now….)

The two yarns were plied from the same singles; a slightly high twist three-ply on the left, and a lower twist two-ply on the right. The weights came out almost identical for the two yarns, which I’m attributing to the higher twist in the three ply. They also came out beautifully elastic, which is something that I have been working at for a long time and have only gotten with my last couple of spinning samples. Fiber prep really is everything.

Tonight, I knit up a swatch. It’s a rather narrow swatch, because I didn’t make as much 3-ply as I thought I did. Still, it was enough to tell me what I needed to know.

Here, the 2-ply is on the left and the 3-ply is on the right, and the join is marked by that little yarn tail poking up toward the top of the frame. I knit both yarns on the same needle, and despite the apparent similarity of weight in the skein, the 3-ply is definitely heavier. It’s hard to see a definite difference in the stitches themselves, but there’s a huge difference in the feel of the fabric. The three ply is cushy and thick, like you’d want for socks or a heavy winter sweater. The 2-ply is lighter and has better drape, possibly because of gauge differences between the two weights of yarn. I’m thinking of a light, spring/summer cardigan this time, so 2-ply it is.

This will be the epitome of mindless knitting; a simple, classic cardigan in a very plain color at a very fine gauge. But at the end, I have something much more fun in mind.

In this case, the sweater is just a canvas for some embroidered accents. I’ve been wanting to mix embroidery with knitting for some time now, and had just never gotten around to it. Last Friday, I pulled out some linen and did some “sketching” in stitches. The central motif there is probably pretty close to the final idea, and then there are some smaller accent flowers and some practice leaves off on the side, just testing how different kinds of stitches work with the yarn that I’m using for embroidery thread.

It’s an awful lot of knitting to support a pretty tiny detail, but I think it’s going to work out well. And a lot of knitting is never a problem, right?

I am sure that everyone has by now heard every last detail of the things going on in Boston this week. It seems that it’s everywhere you look. For those that I haven’t already been in contact with, we are both fine, and our families are fine, and we know of no one in even our extended circles that was injured, despite a few close calls.

Of course, watching from the sidelines doesn’t make things any easier. There have been two days this week where I have sat at home, unable to go to work because the city is shut down due to violence. It’s been a cloud that hangs heavy over this busiest time of the semester, and a time that should be celebratory, as our seniors prepare to go off into the world.

In a way, having those enforced periods of stillness has made things more difficult. And yet, it has given me more time to process. There are so many thoughts and emotions to be sorted through in the aftermath of something like this. These are just a few of the things that I have been feeling, in no particular order:

anger – That someone would choose to do such a thing, and that there are people out there who intentionally foster the mindset that leads to this kind of action.

awe – That onlookers responded so generously, risking life and limb (quite literally) to save strangers in the aftermath. Humanity is a wonderful thing. That the health care and law enforcement systems were prepared to step up, move quickly and effectively, and make sure that the situation was stabilized and contained as quickly as possible. There are many heroes in this story.

gratitude – That we live in a time and a place where acts like this are rare enough to be big news. There are many people in the world who are not so lucky.

complicity – I believe that we make the world we live in, and the presence of such horror speaks to a gaping hole in our global community that I do not know how to fill, and to hurts that I don’t know how to heal. But even in our ignorance and pursuit of day-to-day happiness, we are complicit if we hide our eyes. We cannot just shake our heads and say we don’t understand how “they” can do such things. “We” are part of “they,” and in this case “they” were two of “us.” It is imperative that each of us find ways to take responsibility onto ourselves for healing this hurt.

hope – The fact that we are a part of it means that we have the power to change, if we can only figure out how. We have the power to move on, and the strength to make sure that we turn this horror into an impetus for positive change.

sadness – At the hurt that caused this to happen, and all of the hurt that it has created.

resilience – It is springtime. Trees are blooming, flowers are pushing their way up through the frozen, stony ground. Even when things look bleak, life continues. It will burst back joyful and vibrant, with time.

fortunate – Despite knowing several people who were at the marathon (standing in those very spots) earlier in the day, or who had planned to go and were kept home by their studies, and despite the fact that my sister lives 3 blocks from yesterday’s drama, no one I know is hurt. Considering the crowds and the importance of this event in this city, it is a small miracle that there were so few who were gravely injured or killed. In the scope of tragedies of this sort, the damage from this one was (relatively!) small. An hour or two earlier, and the number of injuries would have been much larger.

impatience – I wish I knew what I could do to help. The usual things (give blood, give money, etc.) seem trite and inconsequential in the face of this. I want to know how we can make deep and lasting change that ensures that we will build a community where this will not happen again.

dread  – I cringe at the thought of the days and weeks to come. The anger that now has an outlet, the sadness that will be seeking explanation. The slow, careful searching for a justice that will not change the facts or heal the pain of loss. I am revulsed by the bigotry that I have already seen, and wince at the vengeance that some people feel is the only answer. I also know that this is a normal part of recovery, but I dread the ugliness of it, on top of the rest.

pity – I know pity is sometimes considered a bad word, but I don’t mean this in a condescending sort of way. I feel pity for a life that has led two young men to this. Whatever its twists and turns, it cannot have been a happy one.  I also feel pity for their family, who have just watched two of their loved ones hunted down, suddenly lost both of them forever, and are also grappling with the shock of their guilt. Our need to explain and understand must be nothing compared to theirs.

I am sure that I will continue to cycle through all of these emotions (and more) as things continue to unfold. I don’t know where the answers lie, or even where to start trying to find them. But, as with all large tasks, you just have to take it one step at a time, one day at a time. And there is work to be done.

This week was cold, wet, and gray, surely the kind that lies at the origin of the “April showers bring May flowers” adage – an attempt to see hope in the midst of the blah. And so far, cold or no, the showers seem to be working (and even ahead of schedule). It seems like we have a new flower a day in the front yard right now. On Monday, these little blue stars made an appearance (I forget what they’re called, but I do remember planting them).

And then somewhere around Wednesday, the buds on the earliest tulips burst into color. They’ve only just opened this morning, so I’m hoping they’ll be around for a good while yet.

The daffodils are up and growing by leaps and bounds. Their buds are also starting to swell, so we should have a pretty party by the front fence in a couple of weeks.

The back yard is now home to quite a lot of mud, after a week of rain. We’ve gotten rid of (most of) the astroturf now, and have dug the holes that we’ll fill with a base for the new patio. We made a trip to the landscaping store this morning, and there will be 1.3 tons of gravel in our driveway on Monday, ready for schlepping. By the time the patio is in, it will be time to fill the back yard with flowers, too. I can’t wait!

In the meantime, I’ve also been getting a fair bit of knitting done. Branden’s Blue Eyes sweater made good train knitting for the beginning of the week while it was small, but had outgrown my work bag by Wednesday. Note to self: I need to come up with another train project for next week!

It’s been going steadily along at home in the evenings, though, and I’m now a few inches past the sleeve split.

That section just before the sleeve split is always the slowest part in a top-down raglan. The neck shaping goes so fast, and then you get into those endless, endless rows that go all the way around the widest part of the chest and over the longest part of the sleeve all at the same time. It’s such a relief to get back to the main body section and put a third of the stitches onto holders.

I can’t decide how I feel about the colors. In detail, they are spot on, and from far away I like how they pattern is coming out. At each point in the yarn, I like the way the colors combine. And yet, somehow, the magic isn’t there. This colorway doesn’t move me the way some of my dye experiments do. It’s right in all of the particulars, and yet that technical accuracy doesn’t translate into an aggregate that I love. Needs more gray and less brown, I think. The brown was supposed to be a highlight, but in this combination it turned out to be a pretty strong, dominant color. It could also use a bit more of the darker gray-blue.

I like it well enough, though, and Branden likes the colors, which is what matters. And, if I put some of my unconscious expectations aside, it is a rather nice yarn working up into a pretty good sweater. I think it will grow on me in the end.

I do like how the three different plies kind of fade in and out of the yarn. For a while, green will be dominant, then the blue, then the turquoise and gray. The yarn is constantly shifting and changing, which makes it fun to knit with, and the marled yarn gives the colors a dappled look and a depth that I like a lot.

The fabric itself makes me think of an impressionist painting, with little flecks of color here and there adding up to a sum that is somehow different than all its individual parts.

I’m on skein 3 out of 12, so I should definitely have enough yarn to finish the sweater, and perhaps more besides.

Shockingly, the fact that I am past the sleeve split means that it’s time to start thinking about the next project already (especially considering the note about train knitting, above). I thought I’d have a while before I’d have to think up anything new, and here I find myself already needing to start thinking of the next thing. Unfortunately, I don’t have a whole lot lined up and waiting, and with end-of-semester brain it will probably take a while to come up with the next project. I had one plan all worked up, and then there was a snafu with the yarn I was going to spin, and I need to find something else. I’m getting a tiny little tickle in the back of my mind about some baby shetland from Greencastle, but that also needs to be spun before it can be knit.

So we’ll see. I think that there will be some spinning of new yarn, and maybe it’s time for a stash toss to see what’s in there that might stand in for a quick project in the meantime. Only one more month until the end of semester, and then there might be space for the design juices to start flowing again. Soon!

I hope you’re not all sick to death of spring flower photos yet. Around this time of year, I just can’t get enough. My little row of crocuses is happily blooming away:

We bought a mixed bag of bulbs, and so far they’ve almost all turned out to be orange and white. I’m a little disappointed, because the purple ones are my favorites. There are a few of them in there, though. And it’s also possible that they’re just coming a little later than the others; there are still some plants in there that haven’t bloomed.

Elsewhere in the yard, one of the mystery flowers has been revealed. See those buds, right at the base of the leaves in the upper right? I’m pretty sure that means that these are hyacinths.

And this one is pretty certain to be a tulip. (I think I even see pink!)

On the other side of the fence, the daffodils have also put in an appearance. They were the late-sleepers of the bunch this year; I think that everything I planted (and a few I didn’t) are now accounted for, though for many it will still be a while until they bloom.

We’ve begun preparations for our back yard projects now, too. Our job this spring is to turn our back yard (currently astroturf) into something a bit more appealing. First up, we’ll be putting in a small patio, and then I will be going crazy filling it in with shade-loving plants, and anything else I can make grow on 2 hours or less of sun a day.

I might have started on the going crazy already, actually. I bought a few more bulbs when we were at Home Depot the other night:

Honestly, I think I bought at least one of everything that had a “full shade” label on it, and a few that didn’t. I might be just a little over-eager for planting season. It has been several years now since I’ve had a proper garden to muck around in. There’s clematis and bleeding heart, elephant ears and astilbe, lily of the valley, begonias, and caladium. Fortunately, the back yard is huge (at least if you consider how empty it is, and how full I plan for it to be), so there will be plenty more coming as the season goes on.

And, because springtime is always the best time to finish a sweater, I finally finished the second sleeve on the Briar Rose sweater.

I can’t believe it’s taken this long. The last foot and a half of the second sleeve took about 2 months, but it is finally done. The goal was a slightly textured, sweatshirt-like sweater, and I think it succeeded. Much to my surprise, it took all three skeins of the Briar Rose 4th of July, and I even had to cannibalize the swatch to finish the sleeve and collar. My swatch gauge was off a little, so it ended up a few inches longer than I expected in both the body and arms, and a bit wider across the chest than I’d accounted for. There’s a tiny bit of bunching at the front shoulders as a result, but it’s not too bad, and it goes with the sweatshirt feel.

It finished blocking this morning, and I’ve been wearing it all day, and I can definitely vouch for sweatshirt comfort, anyway. Yay for a finally-finished sweater!