There haven’t been many studies done on people who stutter, so I often wonder whether my speech-related quirks are shared by other stutterers. One of those quirks is that I can’t do a whole lot of other things while I’m having a conversation. Speaking (especially on the phone) often requires an immense amount of concentration, so other activities tend to come to a grinding halt when I have to speak. I am particularly confounded by cell phones. Walk and talk on the phone at the same time? Give me a break.
This means that I do things one at a time, and my single-minded approach extends to other parts of my life; I finish one book before I start another one; I don’t start a new piece of writing until the one I’m working on is done; and I don’t knit more than one project at the same time.
For some freakish reason, that last item has gone out the window this month. I couldn’t really tell you why, but at least part of the reason has to do with this yarn:
Are you drooling, yarn porn fiends? Instead of telling you what it’s made of, I’m going to let the label speak for itself:
I’m not big on the specialty yarns, nor am I a fan of lace-weight yarn (its potential for driving me insane is considerable) but this is something really special. What does one knit with something that’s over fifty percent goat hair, with the rest coming from caterpillars? This!
Long-time readers will recognize this as the original Transcendent Project. I don’t ordinarily knit something just because I plain old want to——I usually have a recipient in mind——but I had a hankering to knit this scarf again, so here we are.
But that’s only one project! Project number two is a swatch of a Danica scarf which, silly me, I delivered to Article Pract today before taking a picture of it. I wasn’t planning on knitting one, but I was informed by the folks who work there that the best way to drum up interest in a knitting class is to have a swatch on the wall of what you’re going to teach. So, I whipped up one-third of a Danica, most of it on the way to and from work this week.
And the third project? It’s a 
that I’m knitting for . Here’s what I have so far:
Isn’t that coming along nicely? See, one of the problems with getting some traction as a knitting designer is that it limits the number of projects that you can talk about in your blog. But I’ll have more pictures of this one as soon as it shows up in , and I can get back to my serially monogamist ways.
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I *did* recognize the Transcendent Project. It’s really lovely. And the pattern is on the yarn label? I have a couple friends who would love a scarf like that. How many balls does the project take? At $16 a pop, that would add up quickly.
The black bars in this post are funny. It looks like Dick Cheney had your blog redacted this week, you know, so we don’t don’t end up encouraging the terrorists somehow. Shh, he’s probably reading this post right now!
Have a great weekend!
Oh man, Sean used the word “terrorists” in a comment. Damn, now I did, too. Soon Cheney will have your entire blog blacked out.
Transcendent is perfectly named. If it weren’t, I’d call it Ribbons of Cloud.
Now I need to go buy some Artfibers so I can make one, too. Please tell me it’s only one skein . . .
As a matter of fact, the scarf does only take one skein. This makes it one of the least expensive trips you can make to ArtFibers. One skein makes a scarf that’s about five feet long.
I’m afraid I can’t publish the pattern here, though. ArtFibers gives you the pattern when you buy the yarn. However, someone did locate a nearly identical pattern on the web somewhere, and I think the link is in the comments for the original Transcendent Project post.
Okay, I ordered some Tsuki to give this a try. Now I’ll tell various friends about the project and try to get them in a bidding war for my affections. (Insert evil laughter here…)
I had a good friend in high school who stuttered. He said it was because his brain worked a lot faster than his mouth. I believe it – he was quite brilliant.
Lucky is the recipient of that scarf! I know what you mean about posting on the blog. It really gets quite limiting for the three or four months before Christmas when all you’re doing is working on things for other people.
I saw about 15 inches of Danica at Urban Knitting Studio in San Francisco this weekend. I was there getting more yarn for Halfdomes, which the owner was happy to see in person. Looking forward to the passages of the freedom of blog information act to reveal your designs.
Knitting monogamy impresses me. I always have at least half a dozen projects, in nearly every area of my life, going on at once, and nothing gets done very well, if it gets done at all.
And, as a slightly persnickety SLP student, I just want to note that all of our brains work significantly faster than our mouths, as well as all of our other muscles, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to talk. So that’s not a problem for anyone. 😉
Speaking of research on stuttering, the NY Times had an interesting article on brain scans of stutters yesterday. In case you haven’t seen it, here it is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/health/12stutt.html?ei=5094&en=ec3ac054200cec55&hp=&ex=1158120000&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1158066410-/pn0UZQOYGdGNxZyrxbdhQ
Augh, you tease!