The Yarnarian Snarls.

It's one of those days. I've been running a lot and it caught up with me today. My gut is not a happy camper, so I'm stuck in the house, which is not so terrible except that I wanted to go to my knitting group and then visit the Mommie. And I'm missing the MA kids and grands. And I want to pester the grands. Not to be, alas. But that's not why I'm snarling. Here's my snarl, and it's totally my own doing!

This, boys and girls, is what I'm grumping about:



These are my notes on the brand new Fan Dance Shawl. Have you ever seen such a mess? This is how I design and knit. Which is just fine if I'm doing it only for me, but this little shawl is destined for greater things. She's going on sale at some point after my insanity calms down. Now I have to decipher what is going on. I know exactly how I knitted this shawl, but formal patterns require some numbers and charts that make sense and such. So, yours truly is sitting here in front of the computer slowly losing what's left of her little mind. SNARL! By the way, I've not been to this restaurant yet, so I have no idea how the menu appeared in my purse.

I was smart enough to make good charts, because I knit solely from charts, and they have to be good, but the verbiage part, plus the unhappy gut is not making me a happy camper.

Not to fear; I will conquer it, and will not learn from this lesson. I can assure you that the next shawl will also be scribbled somewhere as I work with it. This is all Elizabeth Zimmermann's fault! She taught me how to be an independent knitter, and now I have a hard time formalizing matters. Giggle! (I do wish that Blogger had emoticons, because this would be a good place for one or two.)

Wanna see more shawl pics?




I wore it yesterday and the Mommie was quite impressed with it. She's doing remarkably well. She did have lunch in her room, but came out for supper and is her usual self. I suspect that I have more of my dad's genes than hers, but hers are the ones I want. She tells me over and over that she has a very nice old age, and I believe her. She charms everybody. Her doctor bows very low to her when he sees her; he loves her. She is just about the most adorable, charming little old lady around. Believe me, this was NOT the Mommie of old. In her youth, she was one tough cookie. Now she doesn't have to be tough, although she does like a good argument or two. She has Little Old Lady down-pat, and it's all genuine.

One more Mommie story: her short term memory is not great. OK, she's 95, she's entitled. But every now and then, she comes up with something from her youth, and it just rocks me. How does she remember this stuff? Yesterday she started to sing some Romanian patriotic song. Huh? She comes from Transylvania, the ethnic Hungarian part, and her native language is Hungarian. After WWI, that part became Romanian. But the entire family spoke Hungarian at home as did her little town. Somewhere in school, she had to learn this song, and now she remembers it. In Romanian, which I thought she really didn't remember at all. So, while the short term memory is iffy, her long term memory is amazing. Not bad for a really old lady. We had quite a laugh over the song, too.

OK, I've had my fun, back to work on those directions. If you see a small woman in her nightie and robe tearing her hair out and screaming at herself, just smile at her, pat her on the head and tell her it will be all right, and then run as fast as you can to get away from her. She's liable to make you write up the directions!