Flash & Yearn

Hello again!

I was trying to go a whole year between blog posts, but I just couldn't do it. So here I am, thanks to some serious prodding from Timmy, and a gentle nudge from a gentle reader.

Anyway, a while back, when we still had Blockbuster Online, I was searching around for a good movie. The kind that makes you glad you have an online service, as opposed to the kind you let languish for three weeks in the bowl with the bananas. I can't remember the movie that caught my eye, but I do remember that it was categorized as one of many Obsessive Quests. As I browsed around, I realized that I was drawn to Obsessive Quests, in the much the same way I was drawn to Crumbling Marriages, Dying Young, and of course, Witnessing a Crime.

In my time, I have been witness to any number of Obsessive Quests: Ornamental Grasses, N-Scale Model Railroad, 5 Gum, Bakelite Cherries, Beaujolais Nouveau, Flipping Off All Extant Cement Mixers, just to name a few. Most poets, also, live for the Obsessive Quest. Do I even need to mention knitters and their obsessive quests? The Socks That Rock Booth at Rhinebeck comes to mind. Malabrigo, Pigeonroof, Sundara anyone?

First picture of Tea Leaves.

My most recent Obsessive Quest? The Tea Leaves Cardigan, hands down. I swatched. I calculated. I planned. This is possibly my favorite hand knit. Ever. Never mind the entirely cabled cardigan from Vogue Knitting I made (out of Maratona) in the 80s while watching Reds over and over again from a king-sized water bed. Goodbye, February Lady Sweater and all other viral knits! This pattern took hold of me like nothing else. And then it was done. I missed it so much, I made a toddler-sized garter yoke cardi in the same yarn. I thought of Berryman, and all those Dream Songs. I flashed and yearned.

I know Heather felt the same way. On a Wednesday, she texted me that she was only 2 inches below the armholes - complete with frowny face. Sunday morning? The text said -- it's blocking (smiley).


Last picture of O W L S.

Borne along by my Tea Leaves success, it was onward and upward to O W L S. My new love. I yearned for this sweater. Yes, I swatched. I planned, I knitted on, through Swine Flu, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And yet, it was big. The back poofed. I sewed on all 38 button eyes during the Super Bowl. The sleeves sagged. I blocked, I soaked, I threw it in the dryer. It still wasn't right. I frogged. Because, as we now know, knitting is ripping and ripping is knitting. My Quest seemed for naught.

But that's the nature of the Obsessive Quest -- dazzling highs and punishing lows. Probably the same is true of Marriage and Crime. It's Spring and so to my Quest. After weeks of stewing over it all, whining to anyone who will listen, and weighing the relative merits of size 36 vs 38, I'm ready. I've bought new yarn, printed out a fresh copy of the pattern and obsessively check the project gallery on Ravelry for newly finished sweaters. Because I really want that sweater. Hopefully, the second time's the charm.