Death sucks

This is my friend Sarnac. (Click for big.)

(Okay okay, his real name is Bob - Sarnac is his SCA name.)

He died earlier this week of multiple pulmonary embolisms that initially presented like a cold. By all accounts, he had excellent medical care and the clots were simply inoperable. He was 38. He left behind a wife with whom he made a fantastic team and a little girl who is just turning eight.

I am sad, and heartbroken, and ENRAGED.

As you can see, Sarnac was a big guy. But what you can't see is that he also had a big heart, a big personality, a big ability for love, a big sense of fun and a big capacity for joy. I liked him very, very much and it will take me a long time for my brain to reconcile the concept that someone so alive and vibrant is now...not. It is very, very wrong, and very, very unfair.

So. My plans for blogging earlier this week about some very good knitting progress pretty much tanked on Tuesday when I got the call about this. I do now feel more up to writing about my progress, but pictures will have to wait.

Garden Shawl for MIL

More time was spent on Monday doing fixes and sewing in ends. I think I only have five more to sew in. I like to give myself a several-day break in between the times when I work on the finishing because I have to work with the shawl pseudo-blocked on the floor in order to do the fixes properly and make sure the ends are sewn in with the right tension. And doing all this on the floor a) is not easy when you're five months pregnant; and b) gives me rug burns on my elbows.

Stornaway sweater for DH

All the stitches for sleeve #2 have been picked up and it's underway. Two weeks to go. Well, technically 17 days, but I also have to sneak off to my parents' place to wash and block this, then somehow go back a day or two later when it's dry, AND wrap it. But still - I'm confident that I can finish in time as long as I work on it every workday at lunch and on my commutes. Stay tuned.

Foot-pampering socks for Mom

Boy, have I been screwing the pooch on this one. Basically I have been messing up all over the place with following the pattern directions. The irony is that I'm working with the Yarn Harlot's pattern, who herself is notorious for not following pattern directions. Accordingly, her pattern (or 'recipe', as she more accurately calls it) is very straightforward, easy to understand and is clearly designed to be easy to get creative with and riff off of. And yet.

First off, the heel stitches kept falling off the needle when I took a break from the sock, and I ended up losing a few rows before I got them all back on. Then, I was almost finished the heel when I realised I'd completely f***ed up the pattern, and had to start it all over again. When doing the heel over again, I messed up the edge stitches on one side, but told myself, screw it, and instead (successfully) fudged picking up those edge stitches when I began the foot. Oh, and then what happened...oh yes...after working merrily on the foot for some time, I figured I must be approaching the toe and tried it on to see how I was doing. I had waaaaaay overshot myself. Again, riiiip. The final straw was finishing the toe, doing all the grafting, and then looking back over my grafting job with admiring pride, only to discover that I'd twisted the stitches when grafting and it looked like utter crap. (I'm so not looking forward to undoing and redoing all the grafting, but trust me, it must be done.)

The second sock had BETTER damn well go way faster than the first one, I tell ya, or my mom's getting just a singleton sock for Christmas.

Peacock Shawl for Mom

Today I called up Lettuce Knit and asked Laura if she could order the pattern for me from Fiddlesticks. I doubt it will be in by next Wednesday when I go to the SnB/holiday party, but hey, I live in hope.

Arabesque blanket for Alex Mendez

My goal tonight (other than finishing this blog entry, of course) is to finish up the proposal to submit this pattern for Knitty. I'm very excited, but I'm also a bit stressed, because I have no idea where my pattern notes are, I can't remember how big the final product ended up being, and I'm pretty sure I never recorded how much yarn I used. (Genius. Pure genius. Way to think ahead, Kathleen.)

Actually, on second thought, I'm a little too wiped to work it all out tonight. Tomorrow. Yes. Sometime amidst all the baking and laundry and wrapping and shopping and...