Drafts and Redrafts

Here's what I've been working on:



and this:



Write write write knit knit knit. I actually knit that part of the hat TWICE. Two drafts, as it were. The first time, it was way too small. Apparently, I have Gauge Issues. I'm so glad that this knitting resurgence is revealing a whole new set of potential issues for me. Anyway, the hat is still too small for F, but I think it will fit me, and it's really lovely. The yarn is this really gorgeous merino/baby alpaca/silk from The Fibre Company and it's just beautiful to work with. So soft. But it turns out I'm an anxious, tight-assed little knitter (surprise!), and I need to practice being LOOSE. So I started trying to make a scarf in this complicated lace pattern but made a mistake and couldn't figure out how to fix it. So ripped the whole thing out.

It's all about write/knit, rewrite/reknit. And some of it is beautiful (like the hat is becoming, and how I feel about my methodology section) and some of it is still a scrawly tangled mess. My goal is a full redraft of the dissertation by the end of the week. But I'm not going to get there if I don't head for the library NOW.

Fantasmagorical

My friend Linda did her Final Oral Review of her dissertation on Tuesday, and she did a FANTASTIC job. We celebrated by, of all things, going to DIsney on Monday. I have some predictable things to say about that (reinforcing the status quo, particularly the notion of middle America as the centre of the universe, blah blah blah) but she was so happy to be there that I couldn't be a total curmudgeon about it.

Here we are in a teacup. L is wearing mouse ears that say Class of 2008 and Dr. Herlastname on the back.



Now back into my own serious rewrite.

Sheepish

I knit a scarf. Actually, I knit two scarves. First I made this scarf, but in different colours, which reacquainted me with knitting in ribs. It was for F. Unfortunately the only picture I have of it is him wearing it as we crawled around crazy ice formations at the lake a couple of weeks ago -- and he's shy about having his picture posted on my blog.

Then I made this scarf, which taught me basket weave.



I like it. In between all of this knitting and obsessive reading of knitting blogs, I have been writing my ass off, doing some gnashing of teeth, and trying to see the clear threadline. I finished a more or less draft of my diss, and got good feedback on it, and have some rewriting and tightening and locating to do. I am off to Anaheim on sunday, though, for Linda's FOR, so have been doing sketching and not really writing until I get back. Will spend time celebrating Linda's achievements... and ... we're going to disneyland. Really.

I'll report back from the other side of the Pirates of the Caribbean.