Prime Time Knitter

When Bad Things Happen to Good Projects

One reason I like knitting is that I have complete control over it.  Sure, things don’t always work out, but ripping and redoing will always solve any problem—until last week.  My logic completely broke down and chaos has reigned.

My first attempt to get enough Zara to finish Thora failed miserably.  WEBS responded to my order saying that they didn’t have 5 skeins of a single dye lot, but could order them.  That would mean a 2- or 3-week delay, and I was itching to knit on.  So I emailed a few other Zara vendors, and found none with the matching dye lot (no surprise there).  Several, however, had the yarn in stock, and I ordered from one. The 5 skeins arrived Monday—and they don’t match at all.  They are a beautiful rich charcoal, much nicer in fact than the yarn I had used, but far too dark to match.  So I thought, "Hey, I love this sweater.  I love the yarn. Let’s just get 17 balls (no chance of running out then!) and knit it over." But that vendor doesn’t have 17 and needs to special order.  Vendor #3 is the charm, and so I am waiting for new yarn from Village Yarns, the source of my Zara for the Devonshire Jacket.

I will use the gray Zara I have for another of the Jean Frost jackets that require 2 or 3 colors, after I wash it and store it for a while in my moth proofing stuff.  Here are two I have always liked:

After hearing from WEBS, I had a knitless night.  I could have ripped back the Jean Frost Devonshire jacket to a point below the moth hole, but I just didn’t have it in me.  I wanted to knit Thora.  So as I sat mindlessly watching TV, I thought “Socks”.  Why not start a pair that I could knit for a few weeks and finish later in August when Ed is having surgery to repair an abdominal aneurysm? 

Although the Nancy Bush Conwy socks are beautiful, after completing much of the leg, I realized they would not hug my ankles.  A Wall Street Journal article confirmed with numbers what I knew all along.  I have skinny ankles.  The article talked about people seeking to trim their ankles through exercise (is that even possible?) so they could wear gladiator sandals, a fashion trend I expect to last for about 45 minutes, and it reported that the average ankle size was 11 inches.  Mine are 8.  And so in the genetic body part roulette, I apparently have won for ankles, but lost for eyeballs, high cheekbones, and a trim waist.  I was not very thrilled to learn just how svelte my ankles apparently are.  There is no chance I’d wear gladiator sandals unless I had some strapping minions available to carry me around in a sedan chair.  And the narrowness of my ankles makes fitting handknit socks a challenge.  

I spent a few nights charting a motif that would look good if I could manage 8 stitches per inch with a 60-stitch sock.  To test this theory, I tried Wanida, one of the lovely patterns in Cookie A’s Sock Innovation.  Because I’m a loose knitter, I dropped down to 1.5 mm  (2 mm = U.S. 0) needles.  I almost got gauge, but the lacy motif would not hug my ankles.  These are designed to be 8 inches at the ankles, and that means no negative ease there for me.  Cookie A’s book has a great section on designing socks and adapting her motifs for other sizes.  I don’t have time to study it right now, but I think it will help me get a pattern that is tight enough at the ankles to avoid bagging.  Until I can figure out exactly what to do, it will be cabled socks for a while, using stash yarn:

The solids are discontinued Cherry Tree Hill Supersock colors, and the pink/mauve is Shibui, originally intended for Conwy.

It looks as if all is lost in my hope for even 8 sweaters in 2009, with this setback, and socks are definitely looking attractive as a way to diffuse some of my frustration.  In my original Zara order, I had included two new additions to my sock yarn stash:

I now know what the rest of you do about Malabrigo sock yarn (color cordovan).  It feels fabulous.  The Madeline Tosh (color ink) is lovely too.

Because of Ed’s surgery, I need to get some assignments done early so I can take any needed time off.  This limited my time for moth proofing over the weekend because it is harvest time in the garden.  Aside from weeding and planting fall carrots, I have been doing a lot of picking and eating.  My beans have started, which means filet beans almost every night until October.

 And my chard is ready too.

 

I think I’ve calmed down a little over the Thora disaster, and regularly scheduled knitting will resume this evening.

You Can Take It With You

Until recently, I didn’t knit much in public.  When I traveled for work in the 1970s and 80s, I knitted on planes, but that was when the only hazard was being hijacked to Cuba. No one troubled much back then about the dangers of knitting needles as lethal weapons.  And crushed against the window with only one person to see that I was knitting, it didn’t feel very “public”.  Most of the time, I knitted alone in the quiet of my home, as I pretty much still do.  After seeing others’ portable projects, I finally planned one solely for public knitting:  A simple scarf for Ed that is now done, except for weaving in the ends (why bother now—he can’t wear it anyway).   I carried it with me to various doctor’s appointments, and it worked pretty well to keep my anxiety low.  

I find it ironic that since the knitting kept me happily amused in the waiting room, I seldom waited very long.  In fact, it almost seemed as if the doctor was intending to interrupt the tranquility of my knitting with the annoyance of dealing with a medical issue. 

The current UFOs are too complicated for portable knitting. The blocked pieces of the basketweave sweater are ready to have the shoulders joined and neck rows knit. The Thora cables have about 20 rows to go for the complicated Viking knot, and I have to follow a chart to complete them.   

So midweek I started a sock project that I can take with me on Monday when I get my bone density tested and have the results interpreted.  (Now is when I hope all that weight lifting has paid off.) One of my Ravelry sock groups, Sock Knitters Anonymous, is knitting a Nancy Bush sock for June, and that narrowed my search for a portable project. I selected Conwy, from Knitting On the Road, and you can see some of the lovely FOs from this Ravelry link.

The only problem with this design was getting it started.  I played a bit fast and loose with the gauge swatch, using the size 1 (2.5 mm) needles in the pattern, and only knitting about six rows, flat.  And actually, I did get the gauge the pattern specified.  But I have skinny ankles, and I wasn’t getting enough negative ease to keep the socks up.  So I started anew with size 0’s (2.0 mm), and things are working out pretty well--four evenings later.

We had a week of dreary, rainy weather, and outdoor photos were impossible or fleeting, and so I had to tinker with the color on this picture.  The Shibui yarn is a beautiful magenta, and I do like it.

The sock is top down, but it has shaping at the top of the 8-inch leg.  Following the idea of a Ravelry knitter, I moved up the decreases so that they fall closer to the top, and the leg is narrower just below my shin.  I have one more decrease to go before this qualifies as a truly simple knit, and then it is back to sweaters. 

All Present and Accounted For

My washcloth knitting is coming to a rapid conclusion.  Five of the six are done, and the last will be finished tonight for delivery on Wednesday.  One has been given to the recipient, who liked it a lot.

I’m artistically challenged in many ways.  I cannot draw.  In fact, when my son was in preschool, he asked me to draw a cat for him.  When I hesitated, knowing full well this was far beyond my capabilities, he looked at me beseechingly, and I did my best to comply.  When he saw my drawing, he said, “That doesn’t look like a cat.  Mrs. Seegren’s (his teacher’s) cat is better.”  I told him that I have many fine qualities, but drawing isn’t one of them.  He never did ask me to draw anything for him again.

My artistic ineptitude extends itself to wrapping packages also.  But I did want my washcloths and soap presents to look pretty, and so I fell back on the one area where I have some competence—fiber.  At A.C. Moore, I found some nice, inexpensive woven ribbon to use to tie these into a package.  I was not swift enough to calculate what I’d need for six, and I fell short.  So a quick rummage through my fabric notion stash unearthed some lace that I used to use to cover hems. (I no longer do that, and I think this lace must be more than 30 years old.) 

So here they are, ready for a tissue paper wrapper and delivery:

 

 

Just a Second

I’m moving along with my current projects, clearing up my knitting schedule for my first of the 12 sweaters for the NaKniSweMoDo KAL.  The second boysenberry STR sock is finished.

I knit these in STR medium, using #1 US needles.  The pattern is one of the four-stitch ribbing alternatives for the first pattern in Sensational Knitted Socks, and it is top down with a regular slip-stitch heel flap.  I’m very pleased with this project, and I think these are the best of the three alternatives I used for the four-stitch patterns.  I should have a week’s worth of warm socks before the onslaught of sweater knitting that starts on January 1, once the blue-green pair are done—sock #1 is up to the foot.

We had decided to get another parakeet once Addi was finger trained.  Addi is not “really” finger trained.  She basically goes on my finger when she wants to, which is most of the time but not always.  She knows what to do, but often deftly sidesteps my advances.  And since she knows when I want her to go into the cage, she will fly there on her own, often to the command of “home”.  I admire her willfulness in a way, and she is smart and charming.

After Addi arrived on our deck back in April and we realized that no one was asking to have her returned, we visited all the petshops in our area to find bird gear and to look at the parakeets.  I would have loved to get a new bird directly from a breeder, but there are none nearby.  Petco around here has the nicest birds, and this week we got our second:

 

This is Larry Bird (the name was selected by DS).  He is very sweet and energetic, and probably a male (otherwise I guess it will be Larrie).  I’ve begun my lessons in finger training, starting with a small stick.  He goes on the stick rather reflexively, and he is not at all afraid of my hand in the cage. 

Last week, Addi visited the vet for her “well bird visit” and came through with flying colors.  It was a very traumatic episode because she doesn’t like to be held, and I never do it.  She also had her nails cut and a blood test.  Ed and I think that she was ignored by her previous owners.  She clearly wasn’t trained in any way, and she was terrified of everything for a few months, even new toys.  She didn’t even know what millet seed was—the ultimate treat for parakeets.  She is very fond of bells and toys that can be chewed. 

We have to keep the birds apart to be sure Larry is fine—he sees the vet on Tuesday.  This has been hard on everyone because the birds are dying to get in each other’s face.  Addi flies to the small temporary cage Larry is in, and Ed and I act as goalies to keep her off.  I can hardly wait until this quarantine is over. 

And to round out this post (Patriot fans please avert your eyes), I managed to get a picture of Will modeling his Heilo watch cap (the same pattern as Ed’s, from Hats On!), a ribbed scarf that I made to match, and his JETS socks—a self-designed pattern (can’t you tell)—that I knit some time ago.  

Will got up uncharacteristically early, when the sun is best for pictures, to go to today’s game with his friends.  So I took the opportunity to have him model.  Should he ever get up this early on a weekend again, I’ll have him model the sweaters I knit for him.

C'mon, Let's Twist Again

Sock knitting has been my antidote this week to all the discouraging news stories about people losing jobs, houses, and savings.  I have been able to be indulgent without spending a dime by guiltily casting on for a second pair of socks before finishing the first.  I often have two or more sweaters going at the same time, but when it comes to small projects, particularly socks, I have never done that.  Somehow it seems deliciously wrong, but I’ll probably do it again…and again, now that it appears I’ve been bitten by the sock-knitting bug.

The Four-Stitch Ribbing Patterns Charlene Schurch’s Sensational Knitted Socks have worked out very well with STR medium.  The new pair in boysenberry complements the originals:

The twisted patterns have worked out better for me than the simple K-P pattern because they fit my leg more tightly.  I’ve been delighted with the boysenberry color.  I love the yarn, I love the twist-stitch pattern, and the fit of Sock #1 is perfect. 

 

Although I’m not running out of possible patterns for the Four-Stitch sock and Sock #2 is just barely past the ribbing, I got an urge to try something new—but not too new.  I want to wear these socks as soon as possible, and I’m casting creativity aside for the moment in favor of practicality.   After swatching for the pink socks, the first of the STR medium I knit from these patterns, I knew enough about my gauge to avoid having to do it for the other pairs.  There’s definitely something appealing about not having to swatch for a new project.

For the fourth pair, I consulted my copy of More Sensational Socks.  This is a Six–Stitch Pattern that similar to the other socks but sufficiently different to add a modest amount of interest to a new project.  I really like the twist pattern I selected for STR medium in spinel.  The color is a little lighter than the actual color because I used a lot of light to show the twist pattern.

The format of More Sensational Socks appeals to me even more than Sensational Knitted Socks because there are more variations that someone can use—it is sock design on training wheels and just the thing to push me over the brink of being a slave to a published sock pattern to a designer of an original pattern.

I haven’t been inspired to do much original work when knitting socks. Unfortunately, my foot is perfectly suited to socks with heel flaps.  If I knit an 8-inch leg, do a standard sock heel flap on half the stitches, and knit a 7 ¾-inch distance from heel to toe-shaping, I have socks that fit.  And so I’m in a sock-knitting rut because I have no design problem to solve.  And I’ve become deft enough with DPNs not to be induced to try magic loop construction.  I know this has to stop, but I’m having too much fun knitting these socks to contemplate modifications just now.

I did discover one useful bit of information by having two similar designs underway at the same time.  I have been able to compare KnitPicks Harmony needles with Brittany Birch:

The KnitPicks are smoother and have sharper points, which are nice for the twisted stitches.  The Brittany needles grab the yarn, which I like because I’m a loose knitter, but the points are a bit more rounded.  Which do I like better?  I’m not sure.  I think that with slicker yarn or socks that ought to have dense fabric, the Brittanys will be a better bet for me, but with complicated patterns the sharp points of the KnitPicks Harmonies will be my needle of choice.

It’s likely that I’ll enough STR medium from the leftovers of the pink quartz, boysenberry, and spinel to make these socks from Socks Socks Socks:

But once the fourth STR pair of socks is done, I really have to get going on my washcloths or I won’t have holiday gifts.

With Pleasure

I love merino.  This is not to say that alpaca and mohair aren’t fine yarns.  And I’m sure that cashmere, qiviut, and yak are truly wonderful—but unaffordable for me at the moment.  Merino in all its forms and weights has a special quality that always is a pleasure to knit.

Among the favorite yarns in my stash are those from Morehouse Farm.  Morehouse Farm had (and might still have) a booth at the New York City Greenmarket in Union Square, close enough to my apartment in Greenwich Village for a weekly trip for vegetables, fruit, and fresh fish.  (This is one NYC gem that I missed sorely when I moved to the ‘burbs, and the lack of good vegetables is what got me into gardening in the first place.)   At the time, though, I didn’t buy the yarn because I didn’t need warm sweaters.  I was busy sewing clothes for work.  But I was aware of their yarns in the early ‘80s, and I knew that I’d work with them some day.

My interest was renewed when I saw the Family Sweater featured in Knitting in America.  I made one for my son, and was hooked.  I have stash yarn for another Family Sweater for me.  I also used their yarn for special baby presents, and I had enough pink and undyed natural for a small girl-baby gift.  I lacked only the girl baby.

In one of Dorothy’s recent posts, she described a single mom, and it struck a nerve.  When I was the age of the daughter, my mother was a single mother too because my father was ill and not living at home.   After reading the post, I could not get the memory of that time out of my mind, and I realized that here was the perfect little girl for something lovely from the yarn.  What better time than Thanksgiving to create something for her.  And so this weekend, I knit this hat from a Morehouse pattern that I’m about to send off:

 

I think I like the minimally-processed natural colors best, but I have the color-card book so I can select from their range of dyed yarns for future projects.

 

The yarn in the hat is natural white, and the border is the color called peach.  This is the three-ply yarn.

In rummaging through my stash to find the yarn, I located all the other odd balls that I had left from a boy-baby present and my son’s Family Sweater. 

And so I may keep going, and make mittens and a hat from Morehouse patterns I purchased a while ago. 

Those will also be enjoyable knits, they will not give me the same pleasure as being able to share, even in a small way, the things I’ve been thankful for this year.

What Can Brown Do for You?

This is one of those weeks where I’ve felt like a circus juggler—you know, the fellow who starts with one or two balls and then adds more and more balls as his confederate throws them to him.  In my case, however, after two balls, the whole shebang just dropped on the floor bouncing in all directions.  I think Thanksgiving, a surprise “you’ve got to do this in five hours” assignment (which is still on my desk waiting to be completed), and a problem with my email program that took a half-day to fix pushed me over the edge.  I have been knitting, but blogging was one of the first things to drop from my repertoire. 

I’m proud to say that the Target Wave Mittens are on their way to the mitten drive run by the Rochester Knitting Guild.  Although late, I hope they are in time for the December giveaway. 

 

These turned out acceptably, but not as good as the picture in Norah Gaughan’s book.  If you decide to use this pattern, look at the many suggestions on Ravelry for alteration.  I reduced the number of circles around the thumb, and it still seems a bit wonky.  I am glad, though, that my meager stash of acrylic is depleted and the mittens are going to someone who could use them. 

I also finished Ed’s hat from Charlene Schurch’s Hats On! book.  

This took about 2 ½ skeins of Heilo, and I knit it on size 0 needles so it would be warm and dense.  I also made a very deep brim so that it would be double over Ed’s ears.  Heilo can be a bit splitty on such small needles, but I’m very pleased with this hat—as is Ed.  Usually when I finish a warm sweater or other garment, the weather gets too warm to wear it.  Although we had a couple of relatively mild days, it is now snowing, and I think our warmish weather is over. 

In fact, one other obstacle to getting on with my life was the need to put my garden to bed.  October was so mild that I was harvesting tomatoes into the first few weeks, and lettuce, kale, and Swiss chard through the end of the month.  Then we had a cold snap, and I never pulled up my spent plants or took down the row covers.  That took most of yesterday.

But to give myself a treat for working so hard through the summer, I ordered some things from KnitPicks.  

The wonderful brown box, which arrived around a week ago, contained copies of Nancy Bush’s new book on Estonian shawls and Folk Shawls, which I ordered before, but was out of stock.  I’ve wanted to try KnitPicks Gloss for socks, and the purple (color Cosmos) was inside.  Also enclosed are some extra points for my Harmony circular needle set, chocolate Andean Silk for a scarf for Ed, and some Superwash Merino in gray (cobblestone heather) for fingerless gloves for Ed.  Ed insists that they have to be washable, and so Superwash seemed the only way to go.

I decided to cook on Thanksgiving, for just the three of us.  Ed does most of the cooking ordinarily, and so this was intended to be a treat for him, since he could just watch football and let me do the work.  He didn’t quite sit with his feet up—he did cook the vegetables and raced over whenever it seemed as if I wasn’t in command of what I was doing.  But I roasted Cornish game hens and made cranberry sauce.  And, for what has become a tradition, I made a chocolate layer cake.  This is what’s left:

I’m not a skilled baker because I don’t bake that often, but this cake, from a recipe on the back of the Swan’s Down Cake Flour box is really a winner.  I usually frost it with vanilla butter cream icing, but the new flour box had a recipe for chocolate butter cream, and this variation was a success. 

Now if I can only manage to add one more ball to my juggling routine and get these projects up on Ravelry—I think that just might have to wait for next week.

Afflicted and Conflicted

I’m recovering from second-mitten syndrome and I feel a serious bout of startitis coming on. For the past week, I’ve procrastinated about finishing Norah Gaughan’s Target mittens while I worked on a hat for Ed.

I bit the bullet last night and got the second thumb done, and if I can muster the enthusiasm to sew the seams, I’ll have the mittens ready to send off to the mitten drive run by the Knitting Guild of Rochester.

Ed’s hat is not complicated. It is a pattern from Charlene Schurch’s Hats On! book, and I already knit this hat in the past for my son.

His hat has lasted for at least six years, and it looks brand new. If you could see the condition of his other clothing, you would realize just what a miracle this is. But my knitted garments for DH and DS come with “lifetime maintenance”—my lifetime. That means that I remove the garments from their possession in early spring, or as soon as they’re willing to part with hats, scarves, and sweaters, and I wash them and store them. Then they get the garments back in September.

Although simple, the hat is wonderfully elegant and it fulfills my need to create perfect garments. The tough part for me is the tubular cast-on in the round.

The instructions in the book are excellent, but it does take an entire evening to get the first 6 rows started. Both hats are knit from Heilo—on very tiny needles. My son’s hat was done on size 1 US, and Ed’s hat is being knit on size 1.5 US. It makes for a very dense and warm hat, with a lot of shape. The yarn for Ed’s had has been in my stash since about 1998—and I got it at Patternworks’ after-Christmas sale when they were in Poughkeepsie. Oh, how I miss that.

But ribbing holds only so much interest, and so my mind wanders to other projects. I need to knit at least one washcloth to give as a gift this Christmas, and I remembered those in Knitter’s Stash.

These call for Louet linen, and I don’t want to buy new yarn until I know I am “into” washcloths. Heretofore, I’ve knit only clothing. The cotton yarn I thought about is not as thin as the Louet…but (what a surprise) I do have other stash yarn that would be suitable.

I have no idea how old this yarn is, but I put it at circa 1975. It was intended for a sleeveless top. And even when I was thinner than I am now (and sagged less), the 7 skeins of cream and 1 skein of brown weren’t going to cover my chest. I figured this out after the yarn was discontinued, and so it has languished all these years. So will it make good washcloths? I guess it is worth a try.

While I was browsing Knitter’s Stash, I flipped to a sweater I always liked:

This is knit from cashmere, and I probably never could and never will be able to afford that much cashmere. But the sweater called to me for my Tess Silk and Wool stash yarn:

In my mind’s eye, I can see changing the shape of the sweater a little so it is fitted around the waist. The cables at the shoulders will give the very drapy Tess yarn some shape—but swatching that cable is the only way to tell. Some of the past week was spent washing the Tess yarn (the sales woman claimed it might bleed—but it doesn’t bleed enough to warrant doing this). It takes forever to dry. This project will take a bit of thinking, and if I have thinking time, I should spend it on my UFOs. So to avoid the guilt, my mind flitted to socks.

Should I use the medium STR in the rose color or blue-green in a design from Sensational Knitted socks? That would take no time, since I’ve knitted two pairs from that book already in the same weight yarn. Or should I work on an original design from the Fearless Fibers yarn (more brown than it looks here) that I already started to swatch.

Or, should I start the cabled sweater for the Fall Cable KAL and use up my blue stash yarn?

I suspect the answer is going to be “all of the above”.

As Time Went By

Last week was one of those weeks where time seemed to evaporate, and I have a hard time actually accounting for the things I accomplished. And looking around at other bloggers, I don’t seem to be the only one. In my case, it might be the “post-Rhinebeck syndrome". I get so excited by my purchases that the project in the works seems less exciting as my mind races to the things I could be making from the new members of my stash.

And, in fact, my current project is less exciting. I’m knitting away at my checkerboard scarf, and I am making progress. But what can you say at the end of a night’s knitting besides “there are a few more checks on it”. This is where it stands now:

I will use up the ball and see how long it is. When I wrap the unblocked version around my neck, it still seems too short. I ought to have enough for six feet, and that is what I’d like. I’m having a bit of trouble with the color today—it is really a dustier rose.

I think that simple knitting is not for me, even though I need to do a little more. My mind wanders, and although I can pay more attention to my audiobook, I don’t. I still find myself rewinding (can you say that if the book is on an iPod?) to be sure I heard a passage correctly. But one particular reverie did solve a problem that has persisted for years. When I knit gauge swatches, I will try to keep track of them. Sometimes I do this as notes on the pattern. But if I find the swatch at some later point and can’t locate my notes, I have no idea what needles I used. I usually remember what yarn I used, but not always. On one episode of Knitty Gritty, the guest knitter suggested knotting the tail you leave when you cast on—the number of knots is the needle size. This is ok, but if I’m using size 6 or above, I seem incapable of putting that many knots on the tail. And if I pin a little paper information sheet to the swatch, it comes off. So here is where Staples came to my rescue:

Those neat little price tags are just big enough for the information I need, and they might just do the trick.

Reaching the Halfway Point

In looking over my progress for the past week, it doesn’t seem as if I go any faster on small projects than large ones.

I nearly finished mitten #1. Only the side seam remains.

I can see why so many Ravelers have criticized the pattern. Although I modified the thumb target so it loses two stripes on the original, I’m not getting the smooth mitten shape that I expected. I think the only beautiful version of this mitten is in the published picture, and I’m wondering if the mitten wasn’t pinned back on the side you don’t see in that photo. There appear to be only 5 stitches between the deepest part of the circular target and the mitten edge in the photo, but there are about 10 on mine.

My hand is a bit larger than the mitten size (it is a child’s medium), but it seems that when it is worn it doesn’t look that bad. But I have succumbed to inertia on starting mitten #2.

So I turned to my scarf, which is moving along nicely. But now I’m wondering if it will be long enough. I’m hoping for a scarf that is at least 4 feet long, and preferably 5 feet. Unblocked, this is now about 20 inches.

I unraveled two of my swatches, and they’re soaking now—so I can reuse the yarn as part of the scarf. And, I’ll do this with the third swatch if necessary. When I add the second ball of yarn, I guess I ought to get close to the size I want.

I like the way this is turning out—and it is a fine project to knit while listening to the presidential debates—but I’m not sure the yarn would be my choice for a sweater. There is some pooling, which isn’t a problem for a scarf that will be wrapped around my neck, but it isn’t something I’d like in a sweater. So the pendulum is shifting even more for me in deciding on solid-color yarn acquisitions.

I like the K-P pattern, though, and I’ve been mulling how I might incorporate something similar into a pullover of my own design. There are still more small projects on the horizon. Ed definitely needs a winter hat, and although we’ve had two weeks of weather mild enough to ripen my tomatoes (at last!), this project had better get on the needles quickly.