Yarn Along: March

~knitting~

I already blogged my latest Carbeth, but I also finished the hat I started in February, as well as the Isla shrug.  Unfortunately, the hat came out too big, and my attempts to felt it smaller didn't really work.

 My first make with this hat pattern was in super wash wool, and putting it through the dryer did the trick, but the Wool of the Andes yarn on this version didn't really seem to change size at all.  I guess if I'm going to keep making this pattern, I'd better stick with super wash wool to get the fit I want.  How perfect is that color, though?  I'm tempted to unravel and start again except now the yarn is felted, so I think it would end up being a Job, and I don't need that right now.

The Isla shrug is also just okay.  I can't quite figure out how to style it with separates, but I think I will like it with a dress when it is not quite as cold as it is right now.

I also cast on a Stokey cowl pullover because I liked how my first one fit, but didn't love some things about the yarn.  So far it is going quickly--I knit a good chunk of the back over two days' time.

~reading~

I finished Sarah Ruden's Paul Among the People in one big gulp and highly recommend it.  She is a classicist who takes on the Pauline epistles in order to properly contextualize them in their polytheistic pagan context, and the results are remarkable.  She parses a lot of words that we view through a distorting lens of Puritan thinking about such things and really tries to understand what Paul meant and how the intended audience would have understood when he was writing.  

I'm nearly done with Handywoman by Kate Davies.  It is wonderful.  Kate Davies is the pattern designer of the Carbeth, and many other wonderful knitting patterns, but she also writes books, and this one is about her experience of having a stroke at age 36 (ten years ago) and how she's worked through it all.  It is a marvelous book.  

The book brought up a lot for me, since I had a stroke-like neurologic event in January 1999 that affected my whole left side. The whole thing was terrifying because I didn't know what was going on--just that my body was out of my control, and no one could tell me why.  It was two years before I could walk without my left leg visibly dragging and I could grip things normally with my left hand.  I had new and scary symptoms crop up over the following months and no one could tell me what was happening.  

After reading Kate's book, I realized that the debilitating fatigue that dogged me for a number of years after was probably neurologic fatigue, which is just a whole separate beast from the sort of tired you get from not sleeping well.  I think too, that a number of falls I took in the couple years after were directly related, although I didn't realize it at the time.  

Mostly, I can't believe it has been 20 years since it happened. I'm still kind of upset about how indifferently I was treated by the medical community (my family doctor not included--he was the one who advocated for an MRI and other diagnostic tests, but I was in college eight hours away at the time, and it was far far too late by the time any testing was done).  

There was the small town ER doctor who was annoyed at being called to duty at 11 p.m. on a Friday night when I showed up, scared out of my mind and unable to use my limbs properly.  He did no tests, called for no consults, gave me no medicines, just a pat on the head and sent me back to the dorms with a mutter about flu.  There were the people at the clinic in town that gave me antibiotics two days later but also declined to test me for anything else.  

When I had a scary resurgence of symptoms in January 2016, almost certainly brought on by chronic stress and sleep deprivation due to Birdie's health problems, the neurologist I saw only shrugged and suggested not very gently that I get psychological help.  Thankfully, the symptoms resolved themselves a few months later, and I'm more or less back to what my own neurologic baseline is now.  

I'm trying very hard to forgive these people, as Kate forgave the doctor who shockingly misdiagnosed her at first, and almost certainly made her recovery more difficult.  

I also made good headway into The Power of Silence, and while it is good, it isn't really a whole book's worth of material.  It probably should have been edited down to a long pamphlet or article, as so much of it is repetitive.  That said, I've dog-earred a couple pages to return to for later contemplation.

In other book news, I quietly re-released my first novel with Amazon Kindle last week.  The book has been lightly edited and the cover updated.  It is available in paperback as well.  I wrote it ten years ago, and while I've learned a lot as a writer, it was still a fun story to write. It is an historical thriller set in Holland during WW2.

~sewing~

Another Washi dress, what else?  I realized that my green Washi dress from the fall goes perfectly with my Jade Carbeth, and wanted something to wear with my newest teal Carbeth too.  

So off I trundled to the latest Cotton+Steel offerings, and found this lovely teal number.  The colors are absolutely my jam, and I'm super happy with it.  

Apologies for rubbish photos--it is super cold today, and I was short on time this morning when the light is okay.  So you get indoor photos taken at my kids' school.  Take my word for it that the bodice is exactly the same as my other two Washis from the fall.

~watching~

I've been rewatching stuff lately, because not much appeals to me, but I must write about two movies that I cannot stop thinking about: Silver Linings Playbook and A Star is Born. 

The latter film seriously blew me away.  It is just that good.  Bradley Cooper amazes me.  His singing voice is really wonderful, and the story line is so beautifully wrought.  

I am not a Lady Gaga musical fan, but she was so good in this film, and her singing as Ally is soulful and lovely.  I bought the soundtrack too.  My only question about the story is this: when Ally begins to be managed by a professional, her sound changes a lot and becomes a lot more manufactured ("pop" if you will).  I wondered whether that was a deliberate choice/commentary on what it takes to succeed in the music business: that you have to give up your sound and what makes you unique as a vocal artist in order to "make it" or whether that was just not on the radar.

Lent starts for us on Monday, so we are having our Cheesefare Week now.  Bring on the butter and pancakes!

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along!