Etherknitter

Is it that time again already?

January 1 was my 18th blogiversary.  It occurs to me that I could make up any number and no one would dispute it.  But I am not like that, even if my sense of humor is just like that.

This year was like last year.  A word chosen with hopes on high, disappointment lurking in the heart.  

Weeks, months into the focus, it became clear that flow was not as actionable as I had imagined.  Flow occurs, is recognized, lauded.  Life continues in that moment to other things, and flow is gone.  Predictably, paradoxically, one cannot create flow on command.  By the end of October, I was done.  I almost blogged about it, then took hold of myself and waited.

I almost blogged because the next word landed in my lap at the beginning of October.  The inevitable high school reunion happened.  I even went, despite, or perhaps because I kept in touch with no one.  A woman who had been a friend was rushing around the venue with a smile on her still-lovely face.  I told her she looked happy.  She stopped, thought for a brief second, and said, "It's a choice".  

We hear things, see things, experience things throughout our lives.  Only occasionally are we in the right spot or the right frame, to listen to what we need to hear.  Her simple three word answer, came with a smile that clearly said that she wasn't happy, but she was still smiling,   I started thinking about choice, how it affects what we feel, think, do.   I put away "flow", and have been working with "choice" since the last week in October.  

Annie Dillard:  "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."   Choice.

Voltaire (rough translation from French):  I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health.

Remembering choice has served as a blocker for unconstructive lines of thought.  Recognizing choice can change what one does with the day.  Understanding that I can choose how I respond to a miserable situation, rather than reflexively wallowing/worrying, can be enlightening. 

My prior words:

2015:  Presence
2016:  Resilience
2017:  None
2018:  Patience
2019:  Equanimity
2020:  Consolidation
2021:  Joy
2022:  Flow
2023:  CHOICE

This year's journey promises to be interesting.

I have been busily fibering.  Not so much spinning, just some.  I have a new warp on the loom:  5/2 cotton placemats in an ever changing progression of twill stripes that reverses colors at the midpoint.  

The Lowry sweater is proceeding (Jamieson DK).  His color is Sunrise, a lovely burgundy with orange tones.  I almost done with the front (and back), and have sleeves to go.  I am also knitting a scarf (Reversible Rivulet) for Mr. E from Cumbria left over from his saddle-shoulder pullover by Churchmouse.  I am also trying to finish UFOs.  The one on the current twiddly slate is Baltic mittens by Donna Kay.  Long slog.  Floats in small circumferential (thumb) knitting is not my happy place.

I always tell myself that this will be the last year of the blog.  But I have found it has been difficult to let go.  I may, indeed, see you again.

 

 

 

Word for 2022, and Then Some

Nobody could be surprised by the lack of posting in the midst of the Pandemic.  

My word last year was Joy.  That was a tough one.  I don't suppose that these words are supposed to be easy chip-shots, otherwise, they would not be pursued over a year's time.  I did manage some hold on joy at various times.  Surprisingly, the Pandemic was not the main distraction from joy.

Joy turned out to be a whip rather than a goal.  Feel joy!  Think joy!  Get joy out of something that completely rots!  I spent time thinking about this in order to prepare for the word of 2022.

Using Joy as a goal felt like wrestling.  My goals for 2021 were closer to the idea of Exploration.  That meant exploration in knitting, weaving, spinning, exercise, yoga, organizing, decluttering, cooking.  Was Joy to be measured during the process?  As an endpoint?  As a flash during the experience?  As a retrospective assessment?  The astute reader might say "all of those".  However, that, as a goal, was too diffuse for the word or for the experience.

That was about the time that Mr. E mentioned an article that pushed the concept of Flow into the picture.  While this link is not that article, it covers the concept perfectly.  Dopaminergic reward rears its seductive head yet again.  This is it.  It is what I have been trying to conceptualize throughout the Joy year.  And now, I can use it for my word of 2022.  (Link #2, Link #3 with science and discussions)

My goal has been a flow state.  It can happen with so many activities:  knitting, spinning, cooking, exercise.  Seeking flow does not destroy the experience.  And when it is achieved, that is joy.

This started as, and, indeed, still is a knitting blog.  January 1, long gone, was blogiversary #17.  

The cartoon is my current state of stash contemplation, and the yarn is spindle spun Mad Colors 100% Polwarth, 4 oz.  Nice stuff.  Finishing the spin was a flow state.  Plying it back on itself (yarn vomit!  twisties! rampant scissors use!) was not.  Lesson(s) learned.

 

(cartoon by Allie Brosh)

(yarn by Etherknitter and Bosworth Spindles)

Word for 2021

Today marks the day I first hit 'enter' to publish my first hopeful, reach out into the dark of the knitters' world blog post.  Sixteen years ago.  

The word of 2020 has been a smashing success.  I post this, faithfully, to remind myself of prior goals and commitments.  I suppose a marker of success is that the work has been transformative each year.  And in the predictable paradox, the efforts have always continued despite moving on to new word choices.

2015:  Presence
2016:  Resilience
2017:  None
2018:  Patience
2019:  Equanimity
2020:  Consolidation

Last year, I chose consolidation as my word.  I wrote

"Consolidation.  So much, in one word.  Consolidate the prior years' work from 2015 and forward.  Consolidate the various endeavors of my current life.  Organize stuff that needs organization.  Get rid of stuff that has outlived its purpose.  Get rid of stuff that no longer has relevance.  It is a fantastic word, because it refers to possessions, and papers, and inner life goings-on.  It also means not adding more things to consolidate." 

It has been a wild success.  Being home more meant examining my spaces, editing possessions, cleaning.  For example, I have tossed ~80 pounds of books and catalogues.  That gave me room to put all the knitting and spinning books in one place, and move stuff around so that the weaving area did not have to serve as both a weaving area and a spinning storage area.  

The inner life goings-on involved examining what was worth keeping and what needed to be left behind.  This one was predictably huge, and still a WIP.  

I continued the RTTB quest in the Stash Knitdown (Race to the Bottom of your Stash).  I had signed up to use 25,000 yards.  I achieved 40% of my goal and was content with that.  A new one starts 1/1/21, and my use of stash will continue.

So then, as the idea that life could be snatched away in the blink of a viral eye took hold, another word came to the fore.  I suspect I am late to the party on this one.  But I needed to have done the other words before I could do this one.  The seed was planted by BrainPickings.  She writes about

Joy.

"Choose joy. Choose it like a child chooses the shoe to put on the right foot, the crayon to paint a sky. Choose it at first consciously, effortfully, pressing against the weight of a world heavy with reasons for sorrow, restless with need for action. Feel the sorrow, take the action, but keep pressing the weight of joy against it all, until it becomes mindless, automated, like gravity pulling the stream down its course; until it becomes an inner law of nature. If Viktor Frankl can exclaim “yes to life, in spite of everything!” — and what an everything he lived through — then so can any one of us amid the rubble of our plans, so trifling by comparison. Joy is not a function of a life free of friction and frustration, but a function of focus — an inner elevation by the fulcrum of choice. So often, it is a matter of attending to what Hermann Hesse called, as the world was about to come unworlded by its first global war, “the little joys”; so often, those are the slender threads of which we weave the lifeline that saves us.

Delight in the age-salted man on the street corner waiting for the light to change, his age-salted dog beside him, each inclined toward the other with the angular subtlety of absolute devotion.

Delight in the little girl zooming past you on her little bicycle, this fierce emissary of the future, rainbow tassels waving from her handlebars and a hundred beaded braids spilling from her golden helmet...."

 

Joy as a conscious choice.  It is different from gratitude.  The source doesn't have to be a new one each time - there are no joy rules.  And there is further joy in that.  I will not belabor you with the things, big and tiny, that bring me joy.  But in this continuing pandemic, maybe I will post more often.  

Are you thriving? Surviving? Knitting up a storm?  Losing mojo?  I know I am just plain tired.

Thank you for playing along for so many years!

 

Tour de Fleece 2020

I missed last year's Tour de Fleece.  It was intentional, and I do not remember the reason.  This year, the idea of a spinning challenge dovetailed with my word-of-the-year, which was "consolidate".

The Tour goals are simple.

1.  Ply all the bobbins hanging around the house, and count them as yardage in "Race to the Bottom of Your Stash v3.0" in one of my Rav groups.  I counted twelve bobbins.

2.  Spin something that counts as a comfort spin.  Nothing with a purpose, nothing with a goal, just spin.

The Tour started June 27.  Today is day #7.  So far:

1.  Plied Quiche, a Whitefish Bay (WFB) Corriedale.  2 ply.  34.67 yards
2.  Unidentified coarse marled grey singles, on a bobbin, with ends that would not pull free.  Razored off the bobbin, estimated 30 yards         to compost
3.  Yak/silk blend from Halcyon in Maine, dated 2006, spindle spun, fine laceweight, 2 ply, took forever to ply, 185.5 yards
4.  Unidentified coarse grey wool, 2 ply, lost the last 1+ yard to crappy join, 88.29 yards
5.  Copper Moose commercial Shetland, spun laceweight, measured and thrown into compost, 80.50 yards
6.  Unidentified grey singles, spun as an experiment with twist controlled with my right hand, overspun, measured and tossed to compost
7.  WFB Corriedale sample, white, 2 ply, 37.92 yards

Remaining:  four bobbins on the storage rack, one bobbin with mohair singles on it.  I am planning on really plying the storage rack four, not sure if I will wind off/measure the mohair singles and keep them, or toss them.  (Tossing spun singles represents impressive personal growth.)

The comfort spin is 6 oz of Friends Folly Farm "mishmosh" blend, purchased at SPA in 2017.  Usually she sold wool/mohair 50/50 blend.  This is blues and blacks and greens.  I forgot that I don't like wool/mo blends because they draft clumpy no matter what I do.  I am heaving a moderate-sized sigh, and continuing.  It is a nicer endeavor than all ply all the time, but, yes, not my fave.  Maybe someday I will remember that.

In other knitting news, I am working on seaming the saddle shoulder pullover for Mr. E.  I have part of one sleeve left to knit, but thought I would see if the first sleeve/cap/saddle worked for the body.  Bless Suzanne Bryan for her Youtube video on seaming rows to stitches.  Saved my toast.  OTOH, her ratio, and Churchmouse's ratio ended up being entirely different.  My first trial was Bryan's ratio.  RTFM.  The next try will be Churchmouse's.  

The Vanilla sweater (a Woolly Thistle offering) is >50% done.  I am working on splitting the bottom hem, then I have two sleeves to go.  It is knit at a loose gauge (5st/inch) in Rauma Finullgarn 2.  I think it will be a versatile, oft-worn garment when the weather turns towards fall.

The deck garden is racing for the clouds.  I have never seen such rampant morning glories.  Most of them are volunteers from seeds left in the soil from last year.  The parts of my yard garden that are doing well look good because of rapacious volunteers:  feverfew, digitalis, teasel, perennial geranium.  This year, I do not begrudge them the space.  Free flowers?  Heck yeah.

I am seeing reports in the lay press that the virus has mutated.  It is now reproducing more efficiently in the upper respiratory tract, which means it is more contagious.  That is bad.  But it hasn't mutated into a more deadly variant.  That is good.  But it is demonstrating mutational behavior.  That is predictable and bad.  How that impacts the efficacy of a vaccine is anybody's guess.  I am hoping for effective therapy.  And I stay home.  And I wear really good masks to the grocery store.  And I socially distance everyone except my DH.  And so should you.  

No pictures today.  Maybe next time.  

COVID IV

I am clearly way behind.  I stopped posting because it was either all depressing, or the accuracy of the mainstream sources was starting to catch up.

I found this on Twitter.  (Thanks, Clara.)  I loved it.  You may, too.

The Phoenix Chamber Choir, complete with bleach-wipe container percussion-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpAKcQufacc

In knitting news, what is a knitter to do when she gives herself permission to cast on ANYTHING, and can think of nothing to cast on?  Maybe it is finally time to resume finishing stuff.

 

COVID-19 III

My information feeds are an interesting mix of professional, knitter, phone forcefeeds and Twitter forcefeeds.  (I didn't sign up for the obligatory feeds, but curiosity often compels me to look.  Yes, I know I could opt out, but yeah, curiosity.)

Common themes appear.  

-Many complain that they are wasting a lot of time.  Whether it is from underlying angstiness, human nature, or the sense that time ahead is limitless, who knows.  Different recipes and proportions for different folks, of course.  I am giving myself backslaps for what I get done, rather than my generational guilt and self-chastisement over what I don't get done.  

-Knitters seem to be in a knitting funk.  No knit-mojo.  Here we are, with all the time to knit, and we can't.  Or don't.  See time theme above.  I am knitting long-term projects, so I am making little apparent progress. 

-We are opening the good bottles.  The wine boys are doing the same, without prior discussion amongst ourselves.  Whether it is consolation, or the unacknowledged recognition that survival is not a certainty, no matter.  

I am walking more (nod to EB on that), vacuuming more, consolidating more (yarn with yarn, #6 dpns with #6 dpns, etc).  Our Saturday departmental Zoom meeting suggested that locally, the new infection/new ICU admissions might be slowing.  We are not at a plateau yet.  I see many conjectures in the media about "what will happen next".  In their brazen attempt to attract eyes, and clicks, I am sucked in until I remember that the news is not news until it has happened.  So I will not read nonmedical opinions about new surges and new infection rates and new death rates that have zero evidence to support the suppositions.  That is the rabbit hole of madness.

 

 

COVID-19 From the trenches II

The news clips along, and with it, our fears.  

I continue to see stupid articles about the virus on the web.  One source discussed how the 6 foot rule was not accurate, because coughing or sneezing spread the virus farther than six feet.

Duh.  Have you ever seen one of those slo-mo clips of a sneeze?  Yeah.  It's disgusting, and I'm not going to link one here.  You have mad web skillz, I am sure you will find one of either coughing or sneezing.  No one promised that 6 feet was enough to protect from forced expulsion of aerosolized particles via sneeze or cough.  For that matter, there is minimal data (if any, really) that suggest that all droplets will drop to the ground within six feet of the breather.  At the same time that the media is suggesting greater than six feet (why yes, that is a good idea), we still have social undistancers walking around supermarkets and public parks.  I'll stop there, because Mr. Etherknitter tells me I am being too scoldy.  (Cynical perhaps, but no, I am not scolding. Just trying to put 'facts' in some kind of more accurate and thoughtful perspective.)

Someone linked a yoga video search on Amazon, all free: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=yoga&i=instant-video&language=en_US&crid=3BD6XPZJNQOH8&linkCode=ll2&linkId=3e419293e08bc4819db313050c63364e&sprefix=yoga%2Cinstant-video%2C220&tag=airfarewatchdog-20&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_4

How can you not love this?  Moving meditation, flexibility, and affordability all in one link.  You can also find yoga classes on Youtube.  I need to try them out before I provide links.

Another probably premature news factoid was about losing one's sense of smell as a COVID-19 symptom.  This Slate article (not necessarily an authoritative source by an stretch, but the author did the due diligence of tracing back the spotty research that was supposed to have substantiated this).  Many viruses cause transient loss of smell.  Some actually cause permanent loss of smell.  The cardinal symptoms of fever, cough, shortness of breath, etc. are better signals in the noise of trying to figure out if you've got it.  

Edited to add a link to the Slate article: https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-sense-of-smell-nytimes-fact-check.html

Then there was this.  Laughed endlessly.

 

And have you seen the Youtube video of the Les Mis adaptation by a family of five in Britain?  Keep your eye on the boy with the yellow/black striped jersey.  He has a future.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcO8UhxMixw

And then, of course, there is this mostly reasonable article about masks.  My hospital does not consider the masks adequate for use in clinical contact with COVID-positive patients.  I agree 150%.  But protecting yourself in public makes sense.  And this is a way to do it. 

://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/03/28/masks-all-coronavirus/?utm_campaign=wp_to_your_health&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_tyh&wpmk=1 

Just remember that it does not take the place of social distancing, or the six+ feet rule of contact with other humans.

The peak of the Massachusetts surge is predicted to be ~April 15.  It will last for 2-3 weeks based on what I have been told.

Each year, we need a new influenza vaccine before flu season hits.  The reason for that is because the flu virus is very clever, and mutates rapidly.  That is also why statistics show that the vaccine for flu developed each year is not 100% effective by the time flu hits the Northern Hemisphere.  (The vaccine is developed each year based on the strains circulating in the Southern Hemisphere.  The time period between development and Northern Hemisphere injections gives the bugger time to mutate.  That is probably an oversimplification, but the logic holds.)

That is also  one of the reasons why virologists have theorized that we need a vaccine for coronavirus:  continual mutation.  What I have heard in the medical grapevine is that the virus, so far, has not shown substantial mutation (fact sources not checked by me).  Past performance is no guarantee....right.  So we need a vaccine to protect those who have avoided infection, and one that will serve in case the virus pulls the mutation card out of its hat.  I leave you with a ray of hope:  https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/covid-19-vaccine-frontrunners-67382   And no, I would not think a vaccine carried by a monkey adenovirus is a good idea (one of the choices).  We got this one from either pangolins or bats.  HIV came from a non-human primate vector.  I am not interested in monkey adenovirus used as a vector for a vaccine. 

Stay well.  Stay distanced.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The views expressed on this post are my own and do not reflect the views of my employer.

COVID-19 From the trenches I

I have been meaning to blog for a bit.  Then the virus hit the USA, and it has been all work all the time since then.  I am not one of the lucky ones who can cocoon amidst her snowfort of toilet paper, and knit.  

I spent too many hours at work, and too much time not listening to the panicked news reports in early March.  I missed the toilet paper rush.  Thanks to the Muse for setting me up with toilet paper!  I am blogging now because you need to hear me say things.

I just got a text from the state COVID public hotline that the nonessential businesses would be closed until early May, and the stay at home order will be in place also.  breathes sigh of profound relief  I was terrified that the state would not have the balls to do that.  The governor did, and he absolutely has preemptively saved lives.

During our times away from work, we are doing what everyone is doing.  Walking the neighborhood circuit is now a habit.  We see neighbors, stand many feet away, and chat at a low yell.  We met new ones last week.  Now we wave to all the people in passing cars.  It seems unmannerly not to do so.  They wave back.  We may be in better shape.  

The statistical models that informed us what the peak of infection looked like were what made the draconian measures begin in mid March.  The surge that is happening seems at least 2 weeks earlier than the models predicted.  Prolonged social distancing is the only solution to keep it from getting much much worse, and we now have that in place.

Anyone who says yes, I am young and I will survive the infection is falling prey to the hard-wired human belief that nothing bad will ever happen to them.  The more this happens (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/opinion/doctors-coronavirus-safety.html) the less likely survival is.  The more we find out about the virus' clinical course, the more frightening it becomes.  One of the difficult facts that I have seen recently is that 66% of Americans have a medical problem that can predispose them to a critical course of illness.  That medical problem is obesity.  Dr. David Ludwig wrote this today in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/opinion/obesity-us-health-coronavirus.html

We are cooking more at home.  An occasional foray into the world occurs to restock vegetables.  We missed the hand sanitizer and wipes hoarding.  Trying to find those is an exercise in futility, so we don't make worthless trips to find what doesn't exist.  Yes, we were working when all that was happening.  Please don't say "thank you for your service".  My ear hears you say "thank you for dying before I do because I got all the Purell".  

Health care providers in New York are having to make decisions about who lives and who dies because there aren't enough resources to care for everyone.  That is the scenario everyone feared.  It is now happening nearby.

So PLEASE stay home.  So many lives depend on it.  Despite social distancing, the medical system is beyond capacity.  Giving up on social distancing will make sure many more die.  Do not do the American thing and assume someone will step in to take care of you when disaster strikes.  I have echoed Mr. Spock, the Vulcan science officer in Star Trek, so many times over the last two months:  the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  You may not be the one put on the last of the ventilators.  Here is another opinion:  https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/30/opinion/message-public-mass-doctors-nurses-ethicists-about-coronavirus/  STAY HOME.  Social distancing is not sitting in the same room with friends for hours, staying six feet apart.  The respiratory droplets spread.  

Dr. David Ludwig has been a voice of reason in the medical world for many years. If you know me at all, you know I follow his dietary guidelines most of the time.  Mr. Etherknitter points out that it is far too late from a COVID-19 standpoint to get metabolically healthy by losing weight.  He is right.  So the best strategy right now is to stay home.  STAY HOME.  

Knitters and spinners and weavers and introverts are not overly dismayed by staying at home for a prolonged time.  I miss my people, but know that this is what needs to be done.  I am finishing the front (after finishing the back) of the saddle shoulder pullover.  Two sleeves, and then we will see if this works.  I now understand my mother's "does it fit??" question when she unveiled our sweaters.  I have resisted buying yarn as consolation because a. I have yarn and b. money is not a given.  I am going stash diving today to see if I have yarn for Floatini.   Yes, startitis is alive and kicking.  I haven't given in yet, but I will.  Seems a benign way of coping.

The snowdrops are done.  Scilla are blooming.  Hellebores are blooming.  I see optimistic maples in early full bud.  I ponder the transient nature of humans on the planet while life that is not caring about a virus unfolds around us.  The chipmunks are awake.  The Cornell hawks have laid three eggs.  Life continues.

Any post that puts "COVID-19" in the title is not going to be a beacon of optimism.  But I hope to at least present to you what the data shows, what the data doesn't show, and what makes sense from a medical and epidemiologic viewpoint now.  Read.  Or do not.  The choice is yours.

Amended to add: "The views expressed on this post are my own and do not reflect the views of my employer."

February, The Valley of the Deer-

 

 

 

Today is one of those monochromatic days after a snowfall; there is color but there is not.  A three day weekend, no commute, awakening without alarms, knitting to be done.  Delicious.

I have not been a monogamous knitter.  Five projects:  Mr E's saddle shoulder pullover in Cumbria, a Kelbourne Woolens hat in Brooklyn Tweed Ranch 02 (cables!), a cowl made of merino/cashmere Northlight Fibers, the Kaffe Fassett color scarf, and an acrylic fuzzy cowl for product rather than process.

This latter one is a PITA to knit.  What was I thinking?  I ordered the yarn because it looked so warm and cozy.  It is.  But I didn't have the right needle for the pattern.  I borrowed #13 dpns.  But the stitches kept falling off the ends.  I discovered this by chance two separate times, could barely identify what qualified as a stitch with all the fuzz going on, and finally ripped it out to start over again.  I ordered a #15 16" circ (which I will probably never use again), and it is in progress.  Even counting cast-on stitches is a challenge.  Despite all this, I have continued, and hope to have something wearable before winter is done.  (I don't even have a stitch marker big enough for these needles, and had to manufacture one.  That is the blue yarn you see in the picture.)

I am going to try to restart a stalled UFO this weekend.  Wish me good fortune.

 

New Year's 2020 and Blogiversary

Fifteen years ago, I hit "publish" on the first post.  Time has the same elusive nature to me that it has for most:  where does it go?  Rather than approaching the unanswerable, the time is better for the word of the year.

The prior years' words have been

2015:  Presence
2016:  Resilience
2017:  None
2018:  Patience
2019:  Equanimity

The last one was difficult.  Hard to remember in the moment when it was most needed, harder to remember how to get to its achievement.  I am a touch farther along the path.

So this year is a year of summary.  I will not repeat prior years' words, even if merited.  What I will do, however, is choose a word that seems so appropriate and needed, that I am surprised that it took me til 2020 to think of it.

Consolidation.  So much, in one word.  Consolidate the prior years' work from 2015 and forward.  Consolidate the various endeavors of my current life.  Organize stuff that needs organization.  Get rid of stuff that has outlived its purpose.  Get rid of stuff that no longer has relevance.  It is a fantastic word, because it refers to possessions, and papers, and inner life goings-on.  It also means not adding more things to consolidate.   

This one is easy to remember, and easier to track.  

Happy New Year to all those who lurk here and cheer me on in the journey!  Do you have a word, too?