attention

I’ve found that, since I’ve returned home, my attention span is really lacking. It might be that David is gone again so I’m alone and feeling a little restless. Or maybe I just need some time to readjust to the pace of life I have here. Or maybe I’m feeling the empty nest affect of having had a house full of visitors for the weekend (there were 6 of us in Casa Cornwell last weekend!). Or maybe I’m spending too much time with the dog.

In the States I bought a bunch of magazines and a new knitting book. There I didn’t have time to get much knitting done so I was psyched to have the time when I got home to start at least 10 new projects (luckily I put these in my carry on so they are not lost in Lufthansa hell). For the past couple of day, as I look at them all, I couldn’t even focus on one long enough to get the right needle size to start. Yes, I’m saying that I can’t even knit. Whoa.

I had to do something to remedy this immediately. Ya’ know how when you’re running and you get a cramp and they say the best thing to do is breathe deeply and run it out? Yeah, me neither – I hate running and will do anything to avoid sweating…but anyway, maybe you can imagine it with me. I applied this strategy to my knitting dilemma.

I took a deep breath and decided to knit it out. I found the perfect solution to help me with this. In one of my new magazines there was a pattern for a quilt. Yes, it seems contradictory to me, too. I mean, if I’m experiencing the attention span of a 5 year old Italian boy waiting for recess, why would I choose to knit a freakin’ quilt (which, by the way will be the largest object I will have ever knit – by far. Usually I’m partial to kids clothes, NOT because I’m partial to kids mind you but because they’re smaller than adult stuff. Hmmm…Perhaps I’ve had this attention span problem for awhile…anyway, I digress)? This is why the quilt is the perfect solution…

(Imagine here a photo of 18 - 4”x 4” knitted squares in bright colors arranged lovingly on a bed with a stone wall in the background. Sorry, I’m still experiencing technical difficulties in the photo department)


See that? I’m tricking my self. The quilt is comprised of 181 of those little squares. Those little squares are garter stitch (knit every row, no increases, no changes at all) and they are small. Every 15 minutes I get to “finish” something, pick a new yarn, and start a new one. Perfect. I can also read while I’m knitting them (just in case I get bored in that 15 minutes). Perfect.

Jumping to a new subject, as I’m apt to do in these days…

(ok, this part makes NO sense if you can’t see the photo. Maybe you’re feeling lucky and just want to make an uneducated guess. Sorry, I'll really try to do something about the photo problem...if I can concentrate long enough)


This is the pergola in May. Does anyone want to modify their guess about how covered it will be with grape vines this year? Remember, David says 100%, I say 70%.