ugh!

I knit all week.


Through three days of a conference. Through the weekend climbing excursion to the Refuge.


but. UGH. Did not drape prettily as it had in my head. (Speaking of my head, I had to chop it out of the picture because I kept making horrid faces. UGH.)


Tolerable when wrapped and tied, which was how I primarily intended to wear it. But. Still.


I'm going to need some distance from this pond scum before I figure out what to do with it!

Joshua Tree

Friday night, end of a tiring week. Six hour flight to Phoenix. Then a four hour drive, barreling through the desert to midnight, towards a big moon on the horizon. All to wake up in the magic of Joshua Tree ...


There were two things about this weekend that were especially remarkable. The first was the mercurial weather. It was by turns blazing with sunshine, swept by wind, and even chilled by snow. Snow in Joshua Tree is a beautiful thing to behold.


The second mind-blowing thing was that an adaptive climbing clinic was going on literally right in the backyard of our campsite. We had so much fun hanging out with them, watching the climbing, and learning about this awesome community. We also spent a morning climbing with Jeff Erenstone, who runs an orthotics and prosthetics clinic in Lake Placid, and got to learn a little about the technology and rehab that goes into this. Way cool.


As for me, when my fingers weren't scraping against granite, they were working bamboo needles and alpaca yarn. I started a cardigan on the trip there ... I don't know how it'll turn out, but it's meant to be a seamless, rolled-edge, raglan cardigan. No pattern. Just futzing around. By the end of the weekend I was done with the yoke -- now it's downwards for the rest of the body and then I need to pick up the stitches for the sleeves.


Love this place. the intensity of the desert. the haunting Joshua Trees. the strangeness of the rock outcroppings. the beauty.

coffee & cables

Sunny morning. Steam rising from coffee.


Trying to get in a few rows on a cabled hat I've been making for a friend. I've already knit the top of the hat three times. This is the fourth go.


I've been trying to figure out how to work the decreases into the cable pattern. I've sketched out new ideas on plain paper, in notebooks during lectures, on cocktail napkins. But each time I knit it up, there's something I don't like about the flow of stitches.


Sometimes my perfectionistic tendencies are too much! So I'm slowing down, giving it a last try, sipping my coffee and trying to be mindful about the process.