I Knew Things Were Going Too Well

I started working on a lace shawl just over a week ago. It was started because I needed a break from knitting socks which had been taking up all my knitting time for some weeks. The first hundred or so rows were completed pretty quickly but as the shawl grew it took longer and longer to knit each row until it got to the stage yesterday where each row was taking something like 20 minutes to complete. But even though the rows were taking longer to complete, the actual pattern over these stitches was very easy to follow and soon became imprinted on my mind so that minimal viewing of the pattern charts was necessary.

Things were going smoothly until about 5.30 this evening when I discovered that there were some mistakes in the shawl. I started to unpick it stitch by stitch but with almost 500 stitches to the row, trying to find out where the errors occurred was going to take forever. So I did the unthinkable. I pulled the needle (I'm using a circular one because they are the best thing to use for shawls) from the shawl and started to unravel the whole shawl.

It may seem a somewhat extreme to do this but I really don't have the ability to concentrate on the shawl for the length of time necessary to unpick it a stitch at a time to find the errors. I often resort to this when knitting lace because it can be so easy to make a mistake which can take forever to find. Admittedly I have never managed to get so far with a shawl before making one of these catastrophic mistakes, but I know that the shawl will probably be better second time around and I am now more aware of the likely problem areas of the pattern.

I have already started knitting again and already have completed 13 rows of the first chart. It is likely that I may finish the first chart this evening and possibly even start the second one. Hopefully, this time I will be able to work on the shawl without having to resort to pulling the needle out.

Black Clouds Overhead

After a couple of weeks feeling rather better than I have for a very long time, over the last few days the black clouds of depression have loomed on the horizon and now are settled firmly overhead.

I have endured a very disrupted pattern of sleep. Sometimes I don't sleep at all and at other times I can't stop sleeping. Tears start flowing for no particular reason and the horrible thoughts are intruding whenever I am not focused on doing something.

Even though I have lived with depression for nearly 12 years, it still amazes me how quickly I can change from being able to cope with life to life becoming unbearable. I am finding it difficult to concentrate for anything longer than about half an hour so my knitting is being done in fits and starts. But even so I have managed to make good progress on the lace shawl that I started last Sunday. I have completed 208 rows and have 160 more to go. Each row is now taking about 10 minutes to complete so progressed has slowed considerably to what it was at the beginning of the week and as additional stitches are added (4 on each right-side row) it will continue to take longer to complete each row.

I have decided to continue working on the shawl over the weekend and then return to knitting socks on Monday. The break from socks has been good and will, I hope, enable me to get back to them with renewed enthusiasm.

Staying In

I didn't sleep very well last night. It was about 2am when I eventually fell asleep and then I kept waking up because of the pain in my knee.

After my little mishaps yesterday when I managed to thump my right knee against the cold hard ground twice, it is swollen and severely bruised. I'm not surprised about the bruising because I take aspirin daily and I have always bruised easily.

I was supposed to be picking up my parcels today and then going to meet Lily (Student Doctor Diaries) for tea this afternoon. At about 9.30am, after limping around the house for a while and managing to bang my knee three times on different pieces of furniture (yes, I am clumsy) I decided to phone her and suggest that we postpone today's meeting as I really didn't fancy trying to walk to the bus stop along the pavements that I had fallen onto twice yesterday.

When Lily answered her phone there was a very hoarse little voice talking to me. Poor Lily had woken up this morning and found that she had lost her voice. My suggestion that we postpone our meeting was greeted with some relief on her part, I believe.

So my opportunity to see her engagement ring and to talk to her about her wedding plans has been put on hold for the time being. However, we will probably manage a meeting either next week or the week after, so I can catch up on all her news then.

After phoning Lily I suddenly came over very tired so I decided that as I wasn't going to go outside today, there was no reason why I couldn't go back to bed for a while. And that is what I did. When I woke up about four hours later I felt a bit better and so I have spent the rest of this afternoon trying to do a bit of studying. I didn't do as much as I had hoped, but at least I have broken the back of the stuff that I still have to read before I settle down to write my 1500-word short story.

This evening, I am going to get out my knitting and try to do a few rows of my lace shawl. When I did some the other day I actually managed to complete 8 rows, which was about 6 rows more than I thought I would do. I have just eaten my evening meal so once this post is published I can get myself comfortable and with a knitted afghan over my knees and another round my shoulders, armed with a bar of chocolate, I shall seat myself in front of the television and see what I can manage tonight. I should finish the pattern block that I am working on at the moment and then do the 4-row divider before starting the next pattern block. This shawl is a bit like a sampler would be in embroidery; it is composed of a number of different lace patterns worked up to the centre of the shawl and they are then worked in reverse for the second half of the shawl. With a bit of luck it should be finished in time for next winter.