Another FO.....a scarf & knitting as Zen practice

I bought this yarn (the name of which I hope I'll remember before I'm done posting) when I was making the poncho for Kayla. It's a rather expensive, hand-dyed wool, and in the end, I opted to go for a less expensive yarn for Kayla. Not, I hasten to add, because a still-growing 10 year old was not worth the expense, but because the yarn when knitted up felt a tad rough.

So I had this hank of wool hanging around, and concurrent with that is my upgrading my knitting book library, which also meant a review of my past knitting book library. There I found Zen & The Art of Knitting, by Bernadette Murphy. The book was published in 2002, which those of you keeping track will know is the YOTA,Year of The Aneurysm. (Or perhaps we should say all time prior to July 2002 was B.A., and all time after was A.A. But that makes it sound like some college-type degrees, and since I'm way past the A.A. and the B.A. stages, let's just refer to time as Before YOTA and After YOTA.)

I bought the book Before YOTA because Bernadette Murphy is a friend of mine (can one still say that about someone one hasn't seen or spoken to in five years?). But I hadn't, I must confess, actually read the book. But then YOTA interfered and knitting was not so much on my mind. Just buying a book that a friend has written is enough, I think; reading it is just icing on the cake.

Here we are, After YOTA, and I'm knitting again. And thinking how my knitting is a visualization of my internal process. That is, all of my stuff, my shit, my schtick or whatever you call it, comes out when I'm knitting. The same stuff that operates in my life, to good and ill, operates in my knitting. And this realization sent me back to Zen and the Art of Knitting, to see what Bernadette has to say about the topic.

So I'm leafing through the Index and I see an entry for "Judaism". Aha, I think. What can the Irish Catholic Bernadette being saying about Judaism? So I'm reading about Mitzvah Day at Temple Israel of Hollywood and how Bernadette knit Preemie caps there and about the conversation at the table and suddenly I see my name. There on page 96 am I--and I didn't know it. Or maybe I did, but forgot due to YOTA.

I got very excited with no one but D to jump around and point it out to, and we know he's not the most appreciative of audiences. Then I felt incredibly guilty that I have not kept up the friendship with Bernadette. Then I decided to make the scarf she describes on page 33 of the Chapter, "Feeding The Soul" in her honor.

The pattern calls for a 2x2 rib interspersed with knit every other row. But of course, I fucked up and lost track of what row I was on. But in the spirit of Making Lemonade, etc. etc. I created my own pattern of reversing the 2x2 and knit for an inch every three inches.

And now I've reached the end of this post and I still can't remember what the yarn is, even though Danielle told me last night. What she also said was that if you wash this yarn, it gets very soft.