Another late night post – can’t sleep. I’ve had five rounds of chemo now, every other week. Seven more rounds to go; I should finish in January 09.

The two 1cm nodules in my right lung have shrunk to almost normal, and there are no new spots or nodules.

The chemo is taking its cumulative toll on me, but it’s better than the alternative.

I am slowly knitting a chemo cap but don’t have the attention span I did pre-chemo, so I take the project up and put it down a lot.

Color draws me insistently, though, and I have returned to my poor attempts at acrylic painting. However, I’ve stopped obsessing about producing “good art.”  I’m creating, and I don’t care if it’s good or bad — no time to worry about that. It’s all self-expression, and I can toss the piece or paint over it if it’s bad. I love the colors, and that’s what is helping me right now.

And making peace with my entire process.

It’s almost midnight. Tomorrow morning I am going to the hospital to have a port inserted into my upper chest. Chemo will be dispensed into my body through the port rather than through veins in my arms.

I can’t sleep. I’m a little concerned about the procedure, of course, but it’s pretty routine. It’s one more step toward chemo, which will begin one week after the port is inserted.

But it’s still sobering to have this done. It’s to save my life. Everything is to save my life now.

I imagine the cancer cells within me that have been cut off at their source (the colon) and cut off at their chosen metastatic site (the lower right lobe of my lung). I picture them roaming around, confused, an illness without a home.

I am depending on chemo to blast them out of the water, to obliterate them to smithereens, to destroy every last vestige of them, and to clear them from my body . . . cleanly and thoroughly, never to return.

And in all of this drama, I will be working and praying for my survival and finding peace in that work and in that prayer. I am working to transform my thoughts from sadness to trust and faith.

But we women are strong. I will find my way with God, family, and friends.

I actually began knitting again yesterday. I am making a slouchy chemo cap out of Crystal Palace cotton chenille, and I’m quite sure it will be too small. So I will have to begin again, and I will use finer yarn this time so the stitches are smaller and less perceptible to sensitive skin. And I’ll use a different pattern.

I have a goal this week, the week before chemo.  I have been walking farther and farther lately, and this week I’d like to get on my bicycle and take a ride. There’s nothing like feeling the air on your face and the wheels rolling beneath you. I want to do that before chemo begins.

The weather has been hot, but late in the day the wind has been picking up and rustling all the leaves and playing with the brim of my hat, trying to blow it away. It is the best weather for being outside and playing and breathing and enjoying every moment.

I’m three weeks past my lung surgery now, in which my right lower lobe was removed. I apparently have about a 55% five-year survival rate from this cancer.

I plan to live.

In the meantime, I eat healthy foods and take walks, even a little mild hiking. And for the first time in my adult life, I am trying to gain weight.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Eating between meals might be enticing if you are yearning for a particular food. But when you have to eat between meals, and it has to be a high calorie food, well, that can make you not even want to look at food at all.

I lost eleven pounds after surgery and have managed to gain one pound back so far. Chemo starts in two or three weeks, and I’d like to have a more normal weight going into that. So we’ll see how it goes.

I haven’t picked up the knitting needles since my diagnosis on June 24th. The surgical scar is across my upper back, and to get to my lung, the surgeon pulled aside the same muscles I use for knitting. Since those muscles are still hurting some, I haven’t had the desire to knit.

Hopefully, that will change soon.

We all go through low times. I am going through one now.

I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks because I’ve been undergoing some tests in connection with the stage 1 colon cancer I was first diagnosed with in October 2005. At that time I had surgery, and all tests showed I was clear.

But now I have three nodules in my right lung, and the surgeon and radiologists agree that they are metastases. On Monday morning, the surgeon will remove almost half of my right lung. I will be in the hospital for a week, recuperate for six weeks, and then begin chemo.

I have had to break this news to my family and friends and have had, oh, a few meltdowns along the way. Right now I’m trying to allow hope to come forth. Grief . . . hope . . . everything in its own time.

I am so busy trying to get all my errands done before I enter the hospital. And I will be officiating at a wedding this weekend, which I want to enjoy and celebrate! So I am preparing for that.

We are also in the middle of a family room remodel, so my house is torn apart, with family room furniture and stuff piled in the living room and in other rooms. I’m trying to figure out how to get carpeting down quickly and the house back to normal so I’ll have a place to lie down when I get home from the hospital.

Precious little knitting is getting done, that’s for sure. And this, unfortunately, is why.

Here is my progress on the Surplice Lace Top.  The back is completed; this is the front. I am using different lace knitting than the pattern calls for.

I’ve been splitting my needle time between this and the alb. Today I almost completed the alb. I need to trim the inside seams and then hem it.

After it’s hemmed, I’ll wear it for a photo. A friend is going to mark the hem for me soon.

I also began a washcloth because I wanted to try a ball of cotton yarn I bought, Nashua Cilantro Colors. The yarn is 70% cotton and 30% polyester and is stretchy. At $9.25 for 136 yards, it’s a pricey washcloth! But 100% cotton is too hard on my forearms, so it’s either stretchy cotton or no cotton for me. I’m using size 6 needles, and the colorway is Blue Mix.

Also, I need a mindless knitting project for when I go crazy with lace knitting or sewing. I can just pick up this washcloth and knit a couple of rows and leave it. I used to knit socks for this purpose, but I’d get too involved in the socks and never finish the other projects.

I don’t actually use washcloths in the shower. I use them to wipe up the bathroom sink areas when they need it. At any rate, this washcloth is certainly giving me a nice big swatch of the Nashua yarn.

First, a garden photo of the lowly but stunning petunia after a rain:

Boy, I’ve had a hard time getting any knitting done recently. I did finish the back of the Surplice Lace Top and am now working my way up the front.

Cliff and I took three days off to move our daughter into her new apartment and help her deep clean her old one. And I’ve been out shopping for cabinets for our family room, which is currently gutted.

Cabinet shopping definitely ranks near the bottom on my list of favorite things to do with my time. Even the cheapest junky cabinets are expensive, and I’m blown away by the prices of mid-level cabinets.

We can’t walk in our living room because everything from the family room has been moved there in addition to the living room furniture.

When I have spare time, I work on the alb, which is a sewing project and not nearly as satisfying to me as knitting. I finally got the side seams sewn up—a major step because the entire garment comes together then.

And I tried the garment on and discovered that the trim I had chosen for the sleeves looks nice enough close up:

but from farther away it looks like rickrack:

Squint and you’ll see it. Ack!

This will not do. Yesterday I carefully took the trim off, having to remove not only the stitching but also a row of basting for each stripe, plus part of the sleeve seam. Aargh.

So I had to shop for another kind of trim yesterday, and also two buttons to hide the Velcro that I’ll be using to keep the alb in place in front. I visited four stores with fabric trims and wasn’t terribly happy with what they had but finally settled on one:

I also had another PET/CT scan last week as part of my regular cancer check-up. I’ll have my bloodwork done next week and will learn all the results the week after that, when I see my oncologist.

And so I remind myself to stay in the moment.

I don’t sew much anymore but I’m sewing an alb, which is a long but simple ministerial garment. I will be officiating at a wedding that will not be held in a church, and I want a simple garment to wear without making a substantial purchase.

So, after much looking, I found a jacket pattern that will work. I’m modifying it like crazy and extending it full-length.

The collar has been the most difficult. Who decided that clergy should wear mandarin collars anyway?

Here’s the upper front so far—no sleeves yet.

And a close-up of the fabric, which is an easy-care, opaque gabardine:

I’ll put white trim on the sleeves and possibly up at the neck as well and will wear the alb with a white cord belt.

Onward to knitting: here is the back of my Surplice Lace Top right now. I’m about to bind off the right shoulder.

As I write, a carpenter is doing demo work on our family room. The cat is confined to my daughter’s room upstairs so he doesn’t escape the house. Jesse the dog is in a long “stay” just outside of the family room, which he is happy with because he can intermittently doze and watch the workman.

He loves people, he loves activity, and he loves the family room. He does have a concerned expression, though, about the changes to his room. Wait until they start busting out the brickwork.

First, here are the flowers I received for Mother’s Day. I don’t normally photograph the flowers my family brings me, but this simple bouquet was stunning.

As for knitting, I’m absolutely over the moon. As I have been reknitting the Surplice Lace Top, my concern has grown as I realized that I will run out of yarn before I even get to the sleeves. The pattern says I should have enough, but I substituted a different lace pattern, and apparently the lace I substituted eats up more yarn.

So I began calling yarn sources and shops all over the US to try to find more yarn in the same dye lot. I bought the original Rowan Calmer at Commuknity in San Jose, California, back in August of 2007, so I was pretty sure it would be difficult to find more.

I also went on Ravelry and called stores which had sold that dye lot in the past, but they had sold out long ago and had different dye lots now. I called the big online yarn sellers and some of the small ones. Struck out every time.

(Before I began the project, I had found one kind person on Ravelry who was willing to sell me her ball of yarn, and I thought then that I would have enough yarn for this project.)

Anyhow, I finally gave up and began calling my local yarn shops here in the Denver area. I figured that even though they wouldn’t have my dye lot, I could see how close a match I could get by holding my yarn side by side with the store yarn and visually matching the color.

Alas, I couldn’t even find a store that carried Rowan Calmer. I’m sure there must be a Denver store that carries it, but it wasn’t one of the shops I called. I began to despair of finding a reasonable match.

Finally I called String, a nearby yarn shop. I had never seen Rowan Calmer there, but I was pretty much out of options and hoped they might at least have a suggestion or two for me (besides “buy more yarn next time,” which I’d already figured out).

The staffer checked inventory and said they had three balls listed in my color number in their storage and she would try to find them for me.

I drove over, and sitting on the counter were the three balls. I held them to my knitting. The lighting was odd—did they match well enough or didn’t they? I looked more closely. Lo and behold, they were the same dye lot number as my yarn! And yes, it was a perfect match.

I never bought yarn so fast and so joyfully. I went home and immediately ripped out part of my knitting again and added two more repeats of the lace pattern to lengthen the top.

Here is the progress of my reknitting of the back so far, along with the wonderful balls of yarn I now have to complete the top:

 
Rowan Calmer, color 476 coral

How many times can you see this photo of the same stretch of knitting and not think I’m just recycling pictures? Rest assured that I have reknitted this section each time. Aargh.

Actually, I’m about 4″ further than the photo shows; I’m now decreasing for the armholes and knitting in relaxed mode again—in fact, I’m noticeably Calmer.   (sorry, couldn’t resist)

 
Knitting Arts in Saratoga, California, is closing its doors.

  photo property of Knitting Arts

Darn. I got pretty far with the Surplice Lace Top, up to casting off for the armholes.

Then I laid it out and measured it, and I had my daughter hold it up to my back (since I’m currently knitting the back half).

Two inches too narrow. Aargh.

It looked plenty wide to me as I knit it. And in a normal sweater I might have gone for the negative ease, although 4” of negative ease (back and front combined) is an awful lot. But this sweater front is a surplice design with already a somewhat low front. I didn’t want to make the top tight and uber-risqué as well.

I began to have doubts about the fit when my knitting of the back yoke seemed to be yielding many beautiful tidy little stitches. Those tidy little stitches were my warning, as I had based my calculations on a looser gauge.

Rowan Calmer is a tricky yarn. I had swatched it, but it’s very stretchy and hard to figure. As I knit the top, I became more comfortable with the yarn and found my groove. And behold, the groove reaped smaller stitches.

It was tempting, so tempting, to knit on. But I remembered the many warnings I had read about knitting entire garments with faulty gauge, expecting some magic to happen and the garment to ultimately fit. It doesn’t.

If I’d tried to block the finished garment wider, it would have shortened, and I didn’t want a cropped top. At 5’8”, I need all the length I can get. (I’m knitting from my stash, and unfortunately I don’t have enough yarn to add much length to this top.)

So with a gulp, I hauled out the swift and ball winder and got busy undoing my work.

Fortunately, both my kids were here working at the kitchen table. Since I feed the yarn through our ceiling kitchen lighting fixture and over to the counter, the sweater being frogged was in the midst of my son’s laptop and my daughter’s artwork. In fact, I anchored the knitting under my son’s computer so the stitches would unravel more smoothly.

And my kids helpfully began singing Weezer’s “Sweater Song” to me:

If you want to destroy my sweater
Pull this thread as I walk away
Watch me unravel I’ll soon be naked
Lying on the floor, lying on the floor
I’ve come undone

Then my son thoughtfully regarded the stitches disappearing before his eyes. And he mused aloud in the highly dramatic tone of a political speech:

“This unraveling sweater is like our dreams. We build these crazy patterns and complex designs . . . only to find that it’s All Too Small. And then we have to go back and unravel . . . and create a new dream . . . one that’s greater . . . one that fits us.”

By the time my kids were done with me, I was remarkably cheered up. And now I have begun again, building my new dream . . . one that fits me.

I thought I had left crochet in the past forever . . . until I saw this photo from Vogue.

The free pattern is here. If anything can get me to pick up a crochet hook again, it will be this hat.

I think that many crocheted items are beautiful, especially when made from more contemporary patterns. It’s just that I crocheted for years (just basic things) and always wanted to knit but felt that knitting was beyond me. Even though my grandmother had taught me to knit when I was a child, knitting still seemed too hard and I didn’t pick it up again until recently.

Now that I knit, I think that crochet is hard and have sort of forgotten how to do much more than single crochet. But this hat is adorable, and the pattern even has three different sizes. And it would be so handy for the roasting Denver sun. Hmm.

I’m moving along with the Surplice Lace Top. I’ve finished the back lower half and am beginning the back yoke. Then on to the front.

Yarn: Rowan Calmer; color: 476. Garment pattern is Nashua’s Surplice Lace Top, but lace pattern is transplanted from IK’s Apres Surf Hoodie.

The marker is where I had intended to change needle sizes to bring the lace in a bit at the waist. But then I tried to change the needles back to the original size and discovered that I had never actually changed the needles in the first place. Good grief.

Fortunately, the lace dips in there anyway as you can see, so I’m glad I didn’t change the needles after all. Still, it was a little surreal because I had convinced myself that the smaller needles were causing the dipped in waist until I discovered my error.

I’m not starting socks now because I’d work on them and ignore the top. I knit worsted socks now—which I can wear clear through spring here in the Rockies—and I don’t pattern them, just use stockinette. So it’s easy to work on them as opposed to knitting lace or following a written pattern.

But I really want to finish this cotton top so I can wear it this summer, so I’m trying to stay focused.

I think I finally found a way to hold the yarn for continental knitting that works for me, with the kind and generous help of Stitchywitch. I am using a slightly revised version of how she holds the yarn, which I never thought would work for me, but surprisingly it does. Maybe that’s because I used to crochet.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be confident enough to use continental knitting in anything but a basic project, but still it’s a skill, and I always enjoy having new options when it comes to knitting.

When I finish the continental scarf I have OTN now, I’ll start another continental-knitting project, aiming to become fluent over time. I would like my continental gauge to become dependable enough that I could tackle a more demanding project. I’ve found that washing continental swatches really evens out the gauge, but I don’t want to depend on that for a major project.

I have had an extended migraine for the past seven days and am now dealing with the tail end of it, I hope. These headaches run in my family, although they don’t usually last this long with me—usually four days max. Fortunately, with some pharmaceutical help, I can knit my way through them.

And the knitting is pure pleasure.

The Cascade 220 Paints socks are finished and have been worn. I’m very happy to report that they do not stretch out of shape and are comfortable throughout the day.

Yarn is Cascade 220 Paints; color 9848 (blues).

In fact, I’m enjoying the socks so much that I bought another skein yesterday at Shuttle, Spindles, & Skeins in Boulder. I drove there for my son’s graduation from CU Boulder—a red letter day.

Yarn is Cascade 220 Paints; color 9930 (greens).

On to the Surplice Lace Top. Boy, did I have difficulty getting gauge!  I ended up with size 2.5 and size 4 needles and knitting very tightly with them to achieve gauge. I was not excited about knitting a sweater with small needles.

Surplice Lace Top from Nashua Handknits Collection No. 4.

Then I began knitting the lace pattern and didn’t like it. What can I say? It just wasn’t fun, and knitting must be fun (most of the time anyway).

So I looked through Barbara Walker’s pattern books for other lace patterns and began one. But I didn’t like actually knitting that lace pattern too well, and the needle size (6) seemed too large for the lace pattern and the yarn.

 (the frogging begins)

As I kept thumbing through the current IK, I eyed that lace pattern in the Apres Surf Hoodie (p. 49) and decided to try it.

Yarn is Rowan Calmer; color 476.

Oh yeah, that did the trick. I went down to size 5 needles and am thoroughly enjoying knitting this lace pattern and the way it looks. I had to do some recalculating because I’m using size 5 needles and lace with shorter repeats than the Surplice Lace Top pattern calls for.

But no worries. After the Tuscany shawl, I’m happy to be knitting something with rows that are a reasonable length again. And the watermelon color of the Rowan Calmer is cheerful.

I’ve been looking over the new Interweave Knits since it arrived ten days ago. At first, I was really put off because I wasn’t fond of any of the patterns except for the Wallis Cardigan, and I’m not sure I love it well enough to actually knit it.

  Wallis Cardigan

But some of the patterns have grown on me. I would have to rewrite them because I would eliminate all the colorwork. But I often chart in Excel those patterns that only provide written directions; I could rewrite a pattern as well.

I think that seeing the Knitting Daily staff modeling the garments has helped me. I didn’t necessarily like the patterns any better as written, but I was able to determine what I didn’t like about the pattern and if I could fix it and knit a garment I would enjoy and wear.

I’m very grateful that Knitting Daily gets those garments off the professional models and puts them on normal-looking people. It is such a help. Here are Knitting Daily’s Gallery One, Gallery Two, and the Eunny Jang Gallery.

In particular, I’ve been eyeing:

  Drawstring Raglan

Without the colors, you have a simple feather-and-fan pattern on the bottom. I’m not sure how I feel about the “sleeves,” but I could either revise them or decide I’m okay with them after all.

I think this is first on my to-do list, because the lines are flattering and the garment could be worn year round. I might use a variegated yarn for it. If the yarn were gently variegated, I don’t think it would hide the lace pattern too much.

I probably won’t make the Apres Surf Hoodie, but I’m using its lace pattern for another top I’m working on right now.

  Apres Surf Hoodie

I like this scarf pattern:

  Gossamer Stars Scarf

It’s simple and might make a relaxing knit. I’d use more yarn and knit a stole.

I like the lines of this vest . . .

  Elinor Tunic

. . . but without the big wide stripe of color smack on the abdomen. The colorwork is pretty, but I wouldn’t want it on the waist or bust either.

I also like the lines of this top:

  Roped Shell

Imagine it in a soft green silk with blue cable trim in a similar color value. Or blue with white cable trim. This top is very graceful. It could be worn summer or winter (a big consideration in the Rockies, with our very short summer season). I think it’s calling to me.

So, for an issue that I initially viewed as particularly uninspiring, it has grown on me and inspired me after all. I do wish they hadn’t used fall colors for so many of the garments, but we’re the knitters and we can fix that.

Ack. Okay, my account really wasn’t suspended; I do pay my bills. Some person who should be using his energy and knowledge to contribute to society decided to hack into my site, and my son closed the site down for a day for repair work.

But I’m back now, ready to kitchener those Cascade socks.