Very Little Knitting Content

Due to the tragic lack of pictures. I thought I was as bad a picture-taker as I could be last year, but I've gotten worse. Who knew that was possible?

On the other hand, I've accumulated an assortment of random thoughts--and what are blogs for if not to torture people with your probably boring random thoughts?

1. I wrote an imaginary post last week, about how much I was enjoying listening to Moby Dick (I really enjoyed reading Ahab's Wife, and it didn't seem fair to read the new, fun one without reading the old, boring one. But it turns out the old, boring one isn't boring. At least, not to listen to, when you can kind of zone out through what must be pages and pages about the history of whales and whaling since the beginning of time, every recorded mention of whales ever, etc.)

Partly, I enjoyed it because there was rowing in it, kind of--when they hunt the whales in long boats. And the "cox" (actually the captain of each long boat) calls them rapscallions, a word all coxes should use more often.

As a result, I was thinking to myself that rowing improves every book... other people have had this thought too, because when I was looking for erg workouts online a couple of days ago, I found Twilight/rowing fanfic instead (in which all of the characters from Twilight book are rowers). I haven't read the books, but on the surface, rowing seems like the perfect sport for vampires--this time of year, you're practicing in the dark anyway.

2. I made (sewed) a capelet for myself a couple of weekends ago--not quite sure what came over me, but I've been coveting the capelet from Chic & Simple Sewing for a while, then suddenly I was cutting it out. Then I was too lazy to get out my sewing machine, so I sewed it all by hand--it's mostly hemming and edgings, so I should have done that anyway, but if my sewing machine had been set up my laziness would have worked the other way, and I'd have machine-sewed the hems. As garments go, it's nearly useless: the temperature will only be right to wear it for about 20 minutes all year (possibly I'll be inside during those minutes, and miss them entirely), and I can't really move my arms, or carry anything, and the neck is really wide so I need to wear it with a big scarf or shawl around my neck to avoid drafts. But it's cute. And I used material I'd been hoarding: dramatically on sale wool fabric that I felted a couple of years ago, just to see what would happen (answer: nice fabric, but the edges didn't felt as well as the middle so it was a little wonky), and scraps from a thrift store sweater I felted to make blankets.

Naturally, I haven't taken a picture of it either--the perfect 20 minutes haven't arrived yet.

3. Kevin and I are trying CrossFit (because otherwise we'd never do any strength training). After the first day, he couldn't lift his arms and I couldn't use my legs. After the second day, I couldn't raise my arms either. But it's going better now--except that it's a huge pain to get there in the evenings, so probably we won't continue after the set of beginning classes we already signed up for.

4. I managed to get a bee sting on my wrist on the way to CrossFit yesterday (I ran into the bee as it was flying above the sidewalk). So now my wrist is just swollen enough to look weird in a way you can't quite pinpoint. And I bet it's going to itch like crazy later.

5. Four of us from the New Haven Rowing Club, with a borrowed cox, won the open Mixed Four on Sunday at the Coastweeks Regatta in Mystic. The cox was really great--but she may have been a little alarmed when (on the way to the start line, after it was too late for her to get away), we told her we'd never rowed together before. Which sounded worse that it really was--the bow and stern pairs had both rowed together a lot--just not both ends of the boat together.

6. Rowing with guys is fun. NHRC mostly puts out separate men's boats and women's boats, so I forget.

7. I really want to knit a dress--possibly out of the leftover alpaca laceweight from the shawl. (Don't worry Laura, I'll finish my designs first!) I was thinking it would be fun to double the yarn for the bodice and most of the skirt to make the fabric solid, then use a single strand for the sleeves and lower skirt, where it can be sheer.