Project#5

January 30, 2008
I insisted on using this one yarn for the trim, possibly against my teacher's will and as a result I am using 3 yarns. One of them is in two colors since there was not enough of one color left for me so technically 4 yarns. I was asked to switch from the 8mm needle to the 9mm because I am knitting too closely but I will go back to the 8mm and pretend that I am a loose knitter. I hate the 9mm.. I am such a conservative. I learned on the 8mm and nothing in the world will make me go to any other gauge. The pattern and color look very sketchy so far. I cannot say I love what I am doing but I am willing to fall in love with it at some point.
I am using Berroco Peruvia in 7115 gris claro and 7117 gris marengo , something called Lang Jawoll Cotton in some speckled gray, light gray, maroon and black and the one I am using for the trim Laines Du Nord Mantova in Purple Mauve Smoke Color #605.

January 31, 2008
I am going to record the instructions. For mystery gauge cast on 79 stitches, work in rib pattern K3 *P3, K4*, end with P3, K3 (OK I just had to count this for a full minute.. 7 * 10 = 70 + P3 and then K3+K3 = 79) for 2 inches then switch to stockinette for .. an unknown amount of inches soon to be revealed. I just looked on my work calendar and the 18th of February is a company holiday. Guess where I'll be ..
11:29 PM
Guess where I won't be.. she is on vacation that week. Anyways the sizes are 40-20.5-30 Chest, Armpit to wrist, neck to wrist so I am not sure why the back has to be 21.5? Mistake: Dropped the skinny yarn so undid 4 stitches, thought I was so great.. wound up unraveling 4 rows and putting all the loops on backwards. By the way I did the above a lot tonight for various reasons, holes too big, dropped skinny yarn, etc.. and every time the loops went on backwards. We really should have picked a better color. I am afraid the recipient will not like this one.
I think I am doing OK on the 8mm. This is the skinniest yarn I have ever worked with. I should have made my dad's sweater out of this.

February 1, 2008
Wow it's February. I am trying to think of design. I am thinking maybe I want to do something to the sleeve like rib 1/4 up or use the trim or trim the shoulder to some part above the elbow on both or do one and then do the below the elbow on the other. I have not even started thinking about the body. Too overwhelmed. I am sure the teacher will come up with something but I would like to come up with something. I want to learn how to come up with things.

I like the idea of lines or cables one on each side as seen here ..
I like how the buttons are separated by multiple line on each side..


Here I like the exaggerated buttonhole section and the lines that go around on the bottom and the top. I think they are garter alternating with something times three..
9:16 PM This is something I just cannot seem to get .. how to put back the stitches on the needle after I rip. This is what I do.. rip and try to put back the stitches as is and end up dropping some of them. Then I do what the instructor has shown me.. stop a row before and then disassemble the stitches as you put them back on the needle, except I always put them on backwards. Then I have to turn around each one by one as I knit them and I end up splitting them which does not look good. So now what I do is put them back on, then put them on another needle as I turn them around and then have to put them back on the original needle so I can knit them.. in this case all 79 of them. I should really ask her again how to do it. She said you have to go from the back but which back? The knit back, the purl back.. the wrong side of the piece.. Why is my font different?!! I hate freeware.
Off the subject: ..who's only beautiful in repose or in retrospect.. This is taken out of a movie review from the Boston Globe. Something to think about .. Am I ever going to stop knitting?

February 2, 2008
Things I want to know:
How to fix mistakes without using the crochet hook?
How to put stitches back on the needles forward?
How does one determine stitch count from the measurements?

3:14 PM
I never thought I'd run into this problem.. size. So far I had so much trouble with the pattern I did even have room for foreseeing other rather obvious problems .. and now when I am a partial pro (only in my mind) I am able to get to this one. The sweater back is 14 1/2 per my instructor and my mom wants it 17. Maybe I can talk her into 16.. I feel like I am more concerned about how the sweater will look then if the person will be happy with it. Not a good idea. Now we run into the lack of yarn problem which we had to begin with and it's now increased. I only have 3 of one color which is not enough.

4:02 PM
I am not happy right now. I am not sure what to do about the length. The instructor was non-supportive as usual.. well no sometimes she is supportive. She is like supportive in an emergency. I called her and she said to do what my mother wants. What about fashion, style, appearance.. why is knitting so emotional. I thought I said this was going to be a technical blog. By the way this sweater is non-photogenic and the yarn is non-photogenic also.

6:30 PM
Learned: How to count rows. I have seen it before but never really did it. You count the parallel bars in between braids. She actually said braids today .. not cables. I was a momentary influence.

Back

For mystery gauge on 6 mm cast on 79 stitches..

make sure the work is 20 1/2 inches when stretched but not too much
work in rib pattern K3 *P3, K4*, end with P3, K3 for 3 inches
Switch to 8mm and work in stockinette and work until 14 1/2
Bind off 4 stitches at the beginning of next 2 rows
Decrease 1 stitch at each side* EOR 5 times by K1, Sl1, K1, PSSO on right and K2tog, K1 on left

Front

Cast on 86 stitches.. I wrote her 86 but did 79. No comment .. except for the one I got from the knitting lady about my reading ability when it comes to following instructions. I have no instructions on the armhole but I had to shape the armholes by decreasing until they measured 5 1/2 inches. Then I had to shape the neck. I don't remember how I did that. I just remember that I screwed up. I put the middle on a stitch holder (15) and then decreased every other row 5 times it says on the instructions but then it was not enough so I just knitted some more rows and then joined the shoulders and she picked up stitches for the colar.

Sleeves

On 8mm cast on 20 sts
Work in garter for 3 1/2 inches
Increase evenly to 38 sts .. increase is the middle increase where you pick up the year in between the stitches
Work in pattern in stockinette increasing 1 st each side every 1 1/2 inches 8 times to total 54 sts
When sleeve measures 17 inches bind of 4 sts at the beginning of next 2 rows
Bind off 1 sts at the beginning of every row until sleeve cap measures 4 inches
We ended up with 62 stitches instead of 54.
Then you have to decrease. I was at 34 stitches from 62 so I had to decrease 3 in the beginning of the next 2 rows, then 4 then 5 and then bind of the remaining 10.

Collar

I don't know. I think I had to decrease from the inside on both sides by one but then it was not long enough so I just knitted up. The mid-section I left on a stitch holder. Then she picked up the stitches with the bubbly yarn and left a piece that was hanging. I should ask her how she did the hanging piece.

* What I forgot:
You bind off on the sleeves and decrease on the front .. not the same for both

TBC
March 23, 2008
Here we are again. Somehow I never end up with full instructions. Sometimes I feel like it's good that I do not have them because then I will have to stop going to the store.

8:52 PM
I just got the above decrease for the sleeve. I got all of her instructions.. amazing. Well they are easy but they were not when I started. I just got confused on sleeve instructions but then I was like.. I got it. I need to finish this sweater before I forget how to sew.. I feel like I need to come on Tuesday for the sleeves .. but I have to do them 1st.

9:11 PM
My design ideas above are boring.. and they are someone else's designs on top of that.

February 3rd, 2008
I went shopping today and bought a sweater. Something I can knit myself a lot better. Not sure why. It's gray.. cute but the binding off looks defective. I am supposed to knit but do not feel like making a ball out of loose yarn .. I am definitely not coming on Tuesday for the sleeves.

February 7th, 2008
I have not done any knitting all week. I have tried to start the sleeves and undid them several times. I cannot figure out how to knit with the yarn. I also ruined it a little bit but I am really good at undoing without getting it all tangled since I have done it over and over. I am not even sure I can go on Saturday because I have accomplished nothing. The instructor will be disappointed.

February 8th, 2008

I think I figured out the yarn but I screwed up one of the cuffs so now I have to knit it on it's own which is not recommended by me.



February 12, 2008
I am done with the front and almost done with the sleeves. I have to wait 2 weeks until the instructor comes back from vacation to get the instructions to the front. I was going to go see her on Tuesday but I got sick. I do not have anymore yarn and I suspect neither does the instructor. It's kind of disturbing and fun at the same time because that means we'll have to improvise for the front as far as yarn is concerned. The cuffs took me forever. I think I did them over 7-8-9 times and may have damaged the yarn in the process. I have only seen the instructor twice during the entire process and did mostly everything on my own. Hopefully the back is not too long and the sleeves not too short.
10:58 PM
I over-knitted .. feel sick ..

February 13, 2008
If I hear about Valentine's day on the news one more time I will sent a complaint letter to the network. I still remember last year when I saw on the table in the restaurant this single rose that the man has given a woman with very long straight blond hair. It was red with a green piece of yarn tied in a bow about 1/3 of the way going up the thorny stem. It was a different color green then the stem.. almost clashing. I did not knit anything then. I am back to being annoyed with February 14th although it's just like any other winter day. My milk says "sell by the 14th" which is cute. I never know what that means. If you can no longer keep it in the Whole Foods refrigerator why is it that you can keep it in your personal refrigerator. Now you are confused as to how long it can remain there without consequences. There is no "throw out by the ..." or "consume by the ..." label.
I finished the sleeves and started on the front. I don't have any questions and feel like if I had yarn I'd try my own design rather then wait 2 full weeks but I don't. Weird. I used to have so many questions. Right now I just have one.. how do you match the measurements of the person to your gauge. I feel like the instructor will never tell me. It's one of those secrets she referred to when she said "When you know this you can buy the business.. "
I forgot to mention I cannot count to 79.. I can only do 78. I was supposed to cast on 79 and did 78. The 2nd time I casted on without counting and then counted and I had 78 so I did one more and then still had 78. I will resume tomorrow. Counting is the worst. I get bored just at the thought of it. I cannot imagine if I ever had to knit something really wide.. I'd never get started. I'd be casting on for eternity .. I'd love to be in charge of the instructor's knitting business for one day. There is like no limit to the mistakes I'd make. Everyone would have the wrong size sweater with incorrect cast on stitches. All I know is how to fix stockinette errors on uncomplicated yarn. For example Laines Du Nord I am using for this sweater (not yet pictured) every time I saw something that looked like it may have been a mistake I undid the whole piece and started over. There still maybe mistakes in it. She never saw it and I have no idea. If there is a dropped stitch in there you cannot even tell because the yarn does not come apart easily. That would be sad. I'd have to undo the entire sleeve to fix it and the increase of the 39 instead of 38. That was one increase let me tell you. I don't know what I was doing in there at all. I just pulled at anything that would move and increased that. In recap I am done with back and sleeves on the 13th and I am on hold until the 26th.
11:40 PM
I just realized that I can count to 79. That was not the problem. I was supposed to do K3, P4 and I did K4, P4 so I ended up with 72 and then I had 5 left instead of 6.. twice!!

February 14th, 2008
I am home sick. Very exciting.
9:17 PM
Today I learned how to pick up stitches without using the crochet hook. I could not do it yesterday but today I figured it out. As I went through the movement I was sort of remembering the movement the teacher does when she does not use the crochet hook. I could not figure it out before and it's so simple. I think what confused me was that the yarn I had to knit with was not straight but in a loop instead. I also understood that I can knit the front identical to the back because the cable is 4 loops and the edge was 3 and 3 which leaves a loop on each side for sewing and 2+2=4. Up until now I did the front different from the back and attempted to do the same thing today but then "realized" that this sweater was different. I can only imagine the teacher's reaction when I show up with the front starting with a purl instead of a knit. She'd be like "How did you think to do this?" Sometimes I feel like my mind is twisted. That would mean that a cable on each side would be 2 loops instead of 4. That would make the sweater look silly like someone did not know what they were doing or had a twisted mind. I feel like I am at a plateau. I understand all the instructions but I cannot do anything on my own. I cannot even figure out pattern instructions that I got off the internet or more like don't feel like reading them. I want to just do things out of my head but there is nothing there quite yet.

February 15, 2008
Well February 14th was uneventful. I am not knitting at all. I cannot wait for the instructor to get back from vacation. I miss instructions. My mom came by in the hat.. so cute!

February 27th, 2008
Guess who is back. "Even if you don't remember your hands will!" in response to my "I think I forgot what to do.. " Apparently this is a perfect hobby for when one is afflicted with Alzheimer's. Just like piano.. but I am not as good at that. I started the front design. I learned how to use 2 yearns at the same time today.. gray and dark gray. She was not kidding when she said she was going to work light gray into the design. I love how she just does whatever and I think whatever she does is great. I did manage to join the 2nd and remove the 1st by cutting it off but it was fine form then on. You put the new one over the old one and pull both. The instructor was telling me what to do row by row when I was at her house so now I don't know how to continue since she is not here. She is really funny. Who does that. It rained all afternoon and evening and now the rain has stopped. Everything is very still. 1:03 AM.

March 1st, 2008
The knitting store was closed today. There was a huge sign on the store which began 'We regret to inform you.. ' For a brief moment I thought something terrible had happened but turns out the instructor is sick.



March 2nd, 2008
Well it's a repeat of the vacation. I am not knitting for another week. I just read a comic strip that had superman saying that knitting is wonderful tonic for the nerves. Of course I had to look up tonic. Apparently it's not only a carbonated drink but: something that lifts the spirits or makes somebody feel better generally. Interesting. I like validation. I also like one word sentences or suffer from poor punctuation either way you want to look at it. I kind of hope the knitting person is feeling better .. not because of me but just because it's not fun to be sick. Maybe I should leave her a message just like that. Project#5 is taking a very long time. Wonder if it's my last collaboration with the teacher .. we'll see. Time will tell as they say or as I have just said.




March 22, 2008
I am almost done with the sweater but I am not going to make it to my mom's birthday. Maybe I can give it to her the weekend after. Teacher said to flip over the stitch holder so when it opens the stitches will not fall off although the stitch holder is very sturdy and do not look like it plans on opening anytime soon. I did a new decrease on the color but only on one side. I think I learned it a few month earlier but did not quite understand what I was doing at the time. I don't like it. One side looks different from the other because of it. I was also really upset because of the asymmetrical triangle but the teacher said she liked it with like this really nice tone in her voice so I guess I like it also. Spring is in the air.. for real. I think the 1st day was like yesterday or Thursday. I am listening to an Alla Pugacheva song. I think the only one she made last year. I am going to miss her .. I miss her already and have been missing her since she got old, started looking and acting ridiculous and stopped singing.





March 23, 2008
I left the knitting lady a message. I feel like I should start sewing and I would if it was not for those crazy sleeve cuffs. There are too many broken yarn strings in the sweater because of all the tangles. I feel like each one is a chance for it to fall apart while washing. The knitting lady is not fond of broken yarn either but she never quite says why. I don't really get that about her. She has a lot of "some things are better left unsaid" things but I do not get the severity behind it.
I finally know how to put the stitches back on. There is a difference between purl and knit. Knit you go into the back of the braid but purl you have to go from the top inside the loop and it's more complicated. I am not afraid to unravel decreased parts but the above only applies to easy yarn. I can do nothing on Laines Du Nord Mantova in Purple Mauve Smoke Color #605. With that it's like I travel in time back to September 2007 to the 1st class. By the way "some things are better left unsaid" are from the song "Why" by Annie Lennox. I cannot remember if I said already that I messed up the design. I took some photos today and you can see it very clearly. Let's see .. should I be upset about that or the crappy job I did the edge of the sleeves or the light gray yarn I managed to tangle even though it was not attached to anything or the fact that I need another day off if I want to make the birthday.
I learned a new thing on Saturday from Heidi's single digit age granddaughter. Horses are measured in hands. A hand is 4 inches and the horse is measured from the ground up to the highest point on her back.

12:39 AM
I think I figured out what I like about all this. It's like I am a designer pretend. That's what's fun.

March 25, 2008
What I did on this sweater is called Itarsia. It's pronounced how it's spelled with the S. It's a method of knitting with two or more colored yarns in which the pattern can be seen from both sides of the finished piece. I accidentally found it in my vogue knitting book while looking for finishing illustrations. I cannot sew. I just do not get it. I feel like I get everything else so far but this. It's like when I could not figure out how to pick up stitches. She said to use Primary yarn to sew. It made me think of physicians. I feel like I should thread something along the sewing path so I do not deviate from it but I cannot even figure out where the path is. Sad today. It was Masha's Birthday today. I am going to make her something. I hope she can come in to be measured. I cannot measure or sew or design. My 3 limitations in the knitting world.

March 26th, 2008
I am sewing. I have undone everything and more then once but I am doing well. I just cannot get the bottom edge even no matter what I try. Tomorrow I am going to try and hold it to the light and mark it. I am doing what she told me .. sewing a few, pulling the thread (so you know you are doing it right) and then stretching it out. I cannot rem exactly how she stretched it vertical or horizontal. I think it was vertical. Starting is the hardest part.

March 29, 2008
Some notes on sewing for a regular sweater with capped sleeves.
Start with sides .. then complete the sleeves and then sew on the sleeves
Sides: go underneath 1 bar although I swear she said 2 before.
Sleeves and body: under one part of the braid on sleeve and under 1 bar on the body
Pin the sleeve to the shoulder not where the string hangs but someplace else .. don't get this part
Cuffs: go in one side and then in another side from top
I have to weave in all this crap tomorrow. I think I will just sit there and do it. I need a class in it but I am sure she will be all annoyed if I bother her with it.

March 30th, 2008
I am done. It does not fit my mom 100% so I am sad. I really wanted it to be perfect fit and otherwise. I am not going to undo it. Or maybe I will. I don't know yet. Right now I feel like that is a huge impossibility. I brought Tatyana in and she wanted some extinct yarn and the teacher was just OK with her. I was hoping she'd be a little nicer. I don't know what her problem is sometimes. She made me take this brownish yarn I did not want to take and then made me go get it from the car when I said Tatyana did not want it. How hard is it for her to be human? Makes me sad. I did spend a good hour and something weaving in loose ends. I took my time. At some point she was like 'did you want to give me that?' She was referring to my pile of loose end cuts. I don't care anymore. I can interrupt and be ignored and not feel bad and not give up. Now if I could only apply it to my life outside of knitting.

March 31st, 2008
Some notes on sewing on buttons. You can stick the needle inside the double loop when you come out and this way the threat is hooked onto the knitting. She used this technique for something else on Saturday but I cannot remember what. What was it?

10:29 PM
I remembered what the loop was for. When she made me sew the 1st half of the cuffs I had to thread the yearn and then go inside the loop .. I think.

Hazelnut Almond Cookie

My recent desert find at Whole Foods. I just had to put it in the Blog. Hazelnut Flour, Almond Flour, Egg Whites, Cane Sugar, Raspberry Jam, Dark Chocolate .. $2.29

Rose Hip

I often surprise myself by wanting to photograph this particular plant. My mother made tea out of this. The buds were ground, put in a thermos and covered with hot water.

Project#4

Introduction:
I am writing this so my small world that I revolve in can see what it takes for Anna to knit something. In this case a sweater I am knitting for myself ..


December 30, 2007
This is how it all started. Above is a part of the ribbed back I redid 3 times. It was too tight. Now I feel like it's too small. We'll see what happens. The little yarn blob is tied together with the yarn from my mom's hat. This is what my teacher does to take care of trailing yarn left over from casting on. I am so unoriginal.

Jan 15, 2008
Instead of a new ball of yearn I managed to connect the bottom left over piece from the casting-on and knitted an entire row with it.That really deserves a photo of it's own because it's not something you see every day. Then I was given a pattern for one of the sides and managed to have the wrong amount of stitches and the wrong pattern. I thought I was past all that. The instructor informed me that she lost the photo we were using for this pattern. No comment. She did find some nice buttons for me which makes me happy even though the sweater does not. I just started the side again and undid it. I had a mistake in it, a pearl instead of a knit and did not really want to attempt at a fix.

Jan 17, 2008
I am not happy with the sweater. I think it's going to be unattractive and most importantly make me look unattractive. I cannot decide on a design and the fact that the original design photo is lost does not make things any better. I even went so far as to write info@sarah-pacini.com the dreaded designer of the sweater an email and got an unfavorable reply from someone named Maïté LIGOT. Due to my limited French I cannot tell if this is a name or some kind of a status identification. This is because Maite reminds me of Maitre d'. In any case I had never received an email from anyone who had several dots and apostrophe above his name. Of course being in a chronic bad mood I cannot resist posting the welcoming words of Maïté LIGOT. "Dear Ms. X" it began "It is with the grreatest interrest that I read your e-mail.." His interest was so "greatest" that it required not one but 2 whole Rs.
I started the side yesterday. The buttonhole section does not look good with the garter stitch. I hate the garter stitch in itself and the narrowing and widening qualities of the yarn make it look very bad. I pulled in the button hole section too much and as a result it is shorter then the side! I have to undo it tonight again. Because of all the undoing the yarn is beginning to look funny or should I say fuzzy. I made another pearl instead of a knit but this time I went down 4 rows and fixed it! I do not think I had ever done that before. I remember the instructor fixing a dropped stitch in my 2nd or 3rd class. I was like wow that's amazing. Anyways unhappy over this sweater. Feel like I don't want to do it anymore but then curious to see what if it works out. I have no idea how. The instructor is going to have to think of something and the quality depends on her mood at the time. To sum it up I have the back done which is so scrunched up because of the ribbing it looks like it can only fit a 5 year old and a side which I have to restart tonight. Great. What about the rest of my so-called life.

Jan 17, 2008 11:13 PM
I think I figured out how to unravel stitches. I am sure there is a term for this that I forgot. For the pearl you stick the needle underneath the "loop" and for the knit you go inside the loop. I could never get this technique. I suppose if I ever spent some time thinking about it I would have figured this out a lot sooner but I could not be bothered. After all I have so many other very important things to think abut.. NOT. Seriously this is the ultimate triumph. I used to unravel a row and then put every single stitch on backwards so when I knitted that row I had to turn every single stitch around. If that does not sound like a fun thing to do to you you are 100% correct. I did not redo the button hole. I had big plans of making it a seed stitch instead of a garter but left the garter.

Jan 18, 2008
The instructor found the photo. The sweater may be OK after all. I liked how we were going to do it. Loved it actually. Let's hope I will not make mistakes. I already tried to do the increase on the sleeves in the middle instead of on the edge.The conversations today were for the most part about diseases and someone's cats and a dog. I kept quiet for the most part and then started talking when I was really tired. Really tired for me mimics the effects of being drunk. I don't care what people think in that condition. I joined in with pet stories.

Jan 18 11:49 PM
I did half the sleeves. I managed to tie a thread from one to the ending thread of another and knit that. I had to undo 'that' which consisted of 2 rows. I hope to finish the sleeves by Monday so we can do the buttonhole side. I knitted all day. 10-3.. 4 to 11 with multiple breaks. I think I fell asleep once for a bit.I am going to try and go to sleep. Very tired.

Jan 19, 2008 11:30 PM
I did the rest of the sleeves today at my parents while watching Runaway Jury. I did try to knit the sleeves together again .. times three. I have 15 inches of the sleeves and I need 16 1/2. I should re-read the instructions because based on past experiences I need to do something totally different. Sometimes I feel like I read the instructions and then just do something else and am certain that I am carrying out the instructions. I am sure there is a term for this condition.

Sleeve Cuff:


I wish I had all the terminology down packed but unfortunately not yet. This is one of the sides .. the place where you saw on the buttons. That stitch is called "garter" I hate it and it looks even more ridiculous with this yarn but then I sort of trust my teacher or respect her choice I guess and she chose this. (This is actually an important line because I could not express what stopped me from totally unraveling this piece apart until now)




Braids. This is what I call the knit side. When I started knitting I consistently confused the terminology especially "knit" which is a type of stitch and "knitting" which is the act of. I think this is the "stockinette" stitch which really should not be called a stitch because it's just basic knitting. I just realized I am "fuzzy" on what is a stitch and what is a pattern. I am going to guess and say that several stitches form a pattern? but I may be mistaken.


Silly as it is I am looking forward to Monday because we are going to start on the button holes. Hopefully it won't be like my last buttonhole event. The instructor had to redo each one after I "did" them. I just looked at the instructions and it does say knit until the sleeves reach 16 1/2 so maybe not all is hopeless after all. Sometimes I am amazed at the instructor's precision. She said to increase every 1 1/4 inch and 15 approximately was my last increase so in 1 1/4 inch I will be around 16 1/2. How did she know that .. I just tried to figure it out and I cannot. The cuff is 1 1/2 so 16 1/2 minus 1 1/2 minus 1 1/4 = 14 3/4 I think. Anyways forgot where I was going with this. Confused. But feel like one day everything will fall in into place.

Below are the sleeves once again with the corresponding balls of yarn. The yarn actually proved to be quite photogenic.


Blogs make me feel very detached. To be continued ..

January 20, 2008
I am done with the sleeves. At least I think I am. I will know tomorrow. I did an extra row on one so it can be exactly 16 1/2 and the other one is a little less. The teacher can decide how long they should be. She'll probably be annoyed that one is longer but it comes with the territory. I still do not like the back and the side. I do not like the ribbing. I think the non-stitch stockinette looks better with this crazy yarn.

January 21, 2008
Buttonholes did not happen today. I got instructions on how to do them half and hour before closing. Recap of what I did 10-2:30 today. Waited for an hour to be 'seen' There were a lot of people in the store today and they all came before me. Then I had to undo the back and decrease the sleeves. For some reason I thought decreasing the sleeves would be really hard and it was not. The back proved to be another story. I decreased too far and had to knit my way up. I confuse bind off and decrease on a regular basis so today was not any different. After realizing that I bound off on the right and decreased on the left I had to undo the row and then some more stuff happened because all I did was undo rows and then while knitting back up had to manually turn around each loop which was facing the wrong way. On Jan 17th I said I had the above all figured out but I was mistaken. When you start learning you keep going until there is a line you cross (or I cross) where I start making mistakes on things I already know how to do. I am not sure what that is called. But it's very strange when you are 100% sure that you are doing something correct and it's 100% wrong.
At first I was getting really really upset. After all this would have taken the teacher 5 minutes and she made no attempt to offer any assistance. Then I felt myself accepting my fate as I settled into undoing another row one by one and putting them on backwards one by one by one .. 'Accepting one's fate' is kind of an interesting feeling of realization, revelation and submission. I do not know when I had that last.
*01-22-08 I just remembered when I had it last. But that's a total other story and it does not involve any yarn.
4:32 PM
I am about to start on the buttonholes. There is nothing more exciting then having an assignment that makes you curious to see what becomes of it. I never did them by myself. Interesting to see if I can. Buttonholes: K1, K1, K2 tog, YO, YO, K2 tog This is always done on the right side and on the wrong side you knit the 2 YOs through the back the old European way.
6:58 PM
I am done for the day. First I did the yarn over YO wrong although according to the knitwitch on youtube.com I didn't. Then I did the usual, knitted the wrong string in, had 11 knits instead of 10, something else.. I can't take it anymore.
11:24
I am overposting. Of course I could not leave the buttonholes alone. I think I figured it out. Not sure. Verification to follow. I did a whole one twice. The 1st time I did I did not like the edge. It is because I messed it up. So I undid it. Someone say 'correct sentence structure' I also casted on several times.. the usual.

January 22, 2008
Sat in the store 10:30 to 5:30 no food. Freezing my butt as usual. I don't think I mentioned this but the store is always freezing. 'Freezing' my butt is not even an expression. The chair I sit on is made out of metal. Anyways my button holes were correct. I went on to make 4 more of them and bound off the sides. Then the most amazing thing happened. We connected the side, sleeve, back, sleeve and side on one round needle. This means I had to knit each piece to the other. Very cool. The only problem is now the sweater is all one row so if you make a mistake you have to undo the 'side-sleeve-back-sleeve-and-side' vs just one side or one sleeve. Another danger is while knitting the parts together you can accidentally flip a piece to the 'wrong side' and then you have like the side on the right side knitted to a back on the wrong side or a sleeve on the wrong side. Hopefully you get the idea. At some point someone asked if I was making a cardigan and as a result it was discovered that I forgot a button hole. My teacher went in that big mess of sleeves and sides .. undid something and made a hole. I cannot do that .. maybe not ever. I did have a small episode when I reached the end of one row and had to do the next one. The thread I was using was on one side and the row I had to do next was on the other. It appeared that in order to continue I'd have to connect the two sides however we made buttonholes so the sweater can button and not be sewn shut. That much I knew. I am not sure how to relate this feeling. It's like walking and coming to a cliff with no way to get across when you were not expecting a cliff in the 1st place. I sat there trying to figure out what on earth did I do wrong until I heard someone next to me laughing. The teacher stuck up for me 'She has not used circular needles before' .. oh but I have on the hat except I used them there as a circle and here as flat needles. For those how did not get anything because at times I am a terrible story teller .. when you come to the end of a row you are able to go back on the same row on the opposite side. Since I only used circular needles before to knit a hat as a whole in a circle I wanted to keep going in the circle. The curious thing is when I was making the hat I could not get the circle and now I could not get the non-circle and I cannot seem to explain what happened no matter how hard I try. I give up. Anyways I am home with my connected at the top sweater. The sides are still not connected and the sleeves are not sewn together. I had to disconnect the 4 balls of yarn out of the 5 I was using and now threads are hanging from the 'side-sleeve-back-sleeve-and-side' like little threads of accomplishment. Don't anyone get me wrong .. I still have a million things to do.. the circle, the collar the dreaded sewing, buttons and the ironing plus the millions of mistakes I will make before I get the thing completed. But today I am happy. If even for one evening. Someone got complimented on a sweater today and they said that the teacher designed it. And then that same someone said that she loves everything the teacher designs. The teacher kind of laughed it off but I could see she was pleased.
9:19 PM
I am afraid to touch it. I have more instructions but the fear of making a mistake and then undoing a million loops one by one, putting them all backwards and then having to turn each one as you knit really does not look appealing. At least not right now.

January 23, 2008
I could not figure out the knitting instructions from yesterday all morning today and ended up putting a call in to my instructor at 7:15 AM. Something I have not done for a really long time or at least an entire January. We had a little falling out when I text messaged her something about binding off and she did not take it well. I will stop at that. In any case I thought, thought, thought about it and eventually understood what she wanted me to do. The entire process took an hour on the treadmill, some time in the shower and 6 hours at work intermittently (only because I had to think about work also) from 8 until about 1:56 PM. The instructor has not called me back. Apparently she does not feel like it or maybe the 7:15 AM did it. She probably thinks I went insane .. again. Anyway I am about to start knitting. I think I know what I am doing. We'll see. I am looking forward to it. A row with all the parts connected takes me about 40 minutes and I have to do 12 rows. I think that totals about 8 hours. I'd rather do that at home so that I can get more instructions when I come in on Friday.
7:06 PM
I thought I had everything figured out. The sleeves had no ribbing so I could make the ribbing anywhere I wanted and subsequently the pearl decrease anywhere I wanted. But the sleeves were on the knit side so I could not figure out where to pearl the decrease on them .. and then I realized I could do that on the pearl side of the rib. And then I thought I had 5 stitches on a cable on the back and I did not know what to do with the 5th stitch but then I realized there was no 5th stitch because the instructor figured it all out. She is a mathematical genius even thought at times she has terrible phone manners. She still did not call me back.
How do you spell pearl? I am beginning to think its purl. 7:12 PM It is purl! Let it be purl from now on. Pearl looks a lot nicer but no one bothered to ask me. 8:38 PM I don't know where to make the next buttonhole. Annoyed. 10:45 PM I don't like the sweater again. I do not think the garter stitch really broke up the ribbing and I don't like the ribbing all the way up. Not on this sweater with this yarn. Tired. Totally.

January 25th, 2008
10-3 knitted at the store. The button hole is in the wrong place but the instructor said she would not tell anyone. No comment. I just tried it on and it just may be adorable. I am not sure. It's hard to tell with all the parts not joined and hanging off the round needles all tangled up with yarn. Nothing really happened today. I mainly decreased the purl stitches 4-3 then 3-2 then 2-1 every other panel as she called it and the 2-1 on the other panel. Now I have 4 knit vs 1 purl. I am not sure how many rows I worked on today. I did not do exactly what she wanted but then maybe I did. She measured me twice today and I have to come in tomorrow so she can measure again. I am being measured every 3-4 rows which is kind of very exact. I overheard the instructor say a word I was not familiar with at all and then accidentally found it in my Vogue Knitting book. var·i·e·gat·ed: having patches of different colors: marked with or containing patches of different colors.This sweater is being made from variegated yarn and I did not even know. The weird puffy yearn I am using actually has a category.
It's funny but Tuesday and Wednesday I was so concerned about what to do and today I have no concerns and also nothing to do. I only have Monday and Tuesday to work on this..
Someone asked the instructor if she liked such and such a yarn and she said 'There is nothing in here I do not like ..' which was not obvious to me or this person until those words were said.

January 26th, 2008

10-1 knitted at the store again. I love my sweater. I cannot believe that I do but I do. Please do not get as excited as I am since it's not done. I decreased some more today and got remeasured, decreased, remeasured .. etc. Everything went smoothly. I'd finish, interrupt the instructor while she was helping someone else and she'd tell me what to do next. After a couple of hours I lost my ability to interrupt and then I could not get any directions for a little bit .. but then I resumed being rude and everything was OK once again.
I learned a new decrease today which I will document here. I was only told how to do it once which is like record breaking because in general I am shown something over and over, I do it a couple of times and then forget and have to be re-shown. Anyway here it is .. SL1 as if to knit, SL1 as if to knit, then slip the left needle through the front of the 2 slipped stitches on the right needle and knit them together. I got confused at first but then realized that after you have the 2 stitches on both needles and the yarn in back you have no choice but to knit the 2 since when you put the left needle through the the front of the two stitches on the right needle it's the same position as 'knit 2 together' Now I am going to be thinking about this all day since I have to figure out why we did not knit 2 together and had to slip them first and then look like we were about to pearl 2 together. I think I am going to document how to make a type of a button hole in the button making section of this post. Be right back.
At some point (a few minutes before closing) I asked if the instructor wanted to do anything else today and got an abrupt 'No' and then she added 'Because I have to think about it .. ' I liked that she said that. She is actually going to think about my sweater. Someone else will be thinking about it besides me. It's funny how people think about sweaters but in theory you can think about anything.
I was rushing to finish the row I was working on and made a mistake which I ended up going home with. I am going to have to fix it which requires undoing the 'way back' of the button hole which means knitting through the back of yarnovers the old European way. The mistake is bothering me now but I am too tired to undo. I am unfortunately too tired to take a decent photo. The holes are where the sleeves are supposed to be.. the sleeves are hanging nearby off the sides of the chair and the sides are next to the sleeves and the back is in the center. Chair .. compliments of IKEA 2000. They were impossible to put together.



Tired overmeasured sweater .. "Back View"

6:30 PM
I fixed the mistake. For some reason I thought I had to undo something but I do not. I just moved the stitches to another needle until the mistake point. The instructor does this all the time. I just did not think of it.
3:09 AM
I just came home and noticed I have blisters on both left and right index fingers from knitting. I remember telling the instructor that when I was still in the class and she said 'I have blisters from doing dishes' but I was like you have to do the dishes .. this is almost like self inflicting pain.

January 27th, 2008
Today is Sunday and I have nothing to do in terms in knitting and otherwise. I am going to blog my decrease in civil (non-knitting) language so I the civilian can read it later and know what it says here. Never mind. I tried and I cannot get the decrease equasion to equal at the end. I also cannot spell the word equasion. It has a "t" in it. My brain is wearing out due to inactivity and old age. It's 'equation' and even now that looks wrong to me. I've fallen victim to the typical non-native English speaker a.k.a. certain 1st grader phenomena where you write the word as you hear it. Anyway I really liked the decreasing every other panel although I feel like the ribbing looks weird because of it. I knit too slow. There is a way you can do it where you do not wrap the yarn around the needle but kind of 'take' it with a needle. I should really look at the videos..
7:05
PM I am wondering if I should try to describe the decrease again. I started with 4 knits, 4 purls and ended up with1 knit, 2 purls. So I got rid of 3 knits and 2 purls. All I rem is purling 2 purls together every other panel, working back the next row as is and then purling together the remaining 2 purls every other panel. Before that I rem knitting 2 together on each 4 knits rib. I rem that I knitted the 1st 2 and then thought maybe I should knit the middle 2.. anyways I am not sure how I wound up with 2 purl, 1 knit. I guess decrease can be anything as long as it's not sudden. I should pay more attention to what I am doing. I can learn more.


This is some yarn I took from the store. It has gold paint on it. If you do a close up it looks like tinsel. I did not like it at first but now see how it can be beautiful. Next to the yarn is something called a swatch. Someone made it to see what the yarn looks like and get the right gauge which is how many stitches wide, per inch, you knit with the yarn and needles you are using. I rewrote that explanation from www.knittinghelp.com


This is another yarn I took. It's kind of like my blue yarn for the sweater where the yarn goes from thick to thin except the puffy white is attached to a black string which at intervals binds the puffy yarn to the black string. This is kind of amazing. Who thinks up this stuff.. how is it made? That would make a nice documentary.

By the way that circular thing I raved about a week ago I think is called a yoke.

January 28th, 2008
I do not get sewing. I am upset and totally exhausted. I sewed the sleeve together today about a million times. The thread keeps coming apart which is weird. It seems like it is old or badly made. The instructor would not help not that I want her to. I want to learn this myself. She was sick. She said she is sick because people put needles in the mouth and then hand them to her. Why would anyone want to put a knitting needle in their mouth is beyond me. That is very gross. I admit sometimes I try to poke peoples' eyes with them and that's totally accidental.
I am so tired .. all I can see right now is the pink-b-lueg-r-een-purple 2 lines of yarn I am supposed to go under with the sewing needle and I can never find them. Otherwise the sweater is adorable. We did a short collar and did this weird decrease where you knit a purl and a knit together. I just have to try again.. but I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong. I cannot try again either. I over-tried again. I am just sitting here now .. disappointed in oneself. I told the instructor I was depressed and she said it's silly to get upset over things like this. I will not contest that it's silly but I am upset regardless.
After I was done and bound off the collar I saw a mistake. I did an extra garter stitch ie purled where I was supposed to knit. I showed the instructor thinking it was OK to keep and she made me undo it and fixed it. I am getting messy or careless.. or something or maybe when it's for myself I don't care as much. This is the 1st time I had to undo something after it was completed and off the knitting needles. A long time ago I thought I could never handle something like this .. but today it did not seem like a big deal. Maybe because to get to the mistake I had to unbind 7 stitches.

January 29, 2008
Done!
I did sewing several times over and all were a B-grade job on the average. The beautiful buttons cost me $40 and I am afraid they will fall off I was in such a rush to get them on .. but done. It's beautiful. My instructor is amazing:) I got yarn for project#5.

PS. The buttons are falling off. I have to reinforce them. That means I am going to have to get my very own sewing needle and purplish-blue thread. Good luck to me finding the correct thread color. Now I am worried about the buttons .. they were super expensive. I really do not want them falling anyplace. I guess this is something new I have to deal with .. life after the project. I have seen people come in before and say that they needed something stretched out because it did not fit well.. someone complained that the sweater was too short.. etc. Someone did not like the buttons because they chose them in a rush.. why should I be any different.
I am not sure what made me start knitting and why I have not stopped yet but today I feel like I am quite through with it yet.

11:53 PM I put the sweater in a drawer.

February 2,2008
Post scriptum...
I am finally home during the day so I took some photos and of course had to post most of them because I cannot post just one.

This is the back. I like this one because the light is going through the yoke in the back. I keep trying to write yolk and in egg instead of yoke. Very funny.

This is the between the ribs part .. the purl space.


I like this photo because it almost looks human .. to me at least after knitting nonstop for a month. If you look at the bottom button you can see the thread coming out of my not-so-excellent button sewing job. I am dreading re-sewement.


I like this photo also. Also human.. as if about to go someplace after buttoning that button. I think I am losing my mind.

This one is here because I did not think I posted enough photos of the same thing.

This line is the garter stitch separating the yoke form the sweater.. or more like making it more noticeable.

This was just a good detail photo.. or so I think. For some reason the camera cannot capture the button beauty. The buttons are pink and blue glistening or glittering like the inside of an oyster shell and reminded me today of clouds in the morning which were pink-blue-red. They look like that when the sun is setting but I guess they had this appearance when it was rising ..

This is the entire thing. For some reason I take better photos of fragments and I cannot seem to capture the essence of the whole thing. Yes. I know. I am killing the shoulders with that hanger! I had no choice. It's not like this has posing capabilities.

Mitten

This is part of a hat and mitten set I made for my mother. This is by far my favorite photo. The string of yarn is a random piece that was lying next to the mitten at the time the photo was taken.
One mitten was done in class and I managed to make a part of the other one at home but messed up the stitched on the thumb hole. At the end everything was somehow settled by the knitting instructor and neither I nor my mother could tell the difference.

Sweater

This is a sweater I made for my dad or more like a small preview of it. I have some other photos but this is a good closeup of the stitches and the pocket that took me 7 hours to sew on. I feel like the sweater could have been slightly bigger to be totally perfect but he seems to really like it and promised to wear it to his next public speaking event.
I got the buttons at Good Yarn in Brookline. This is after the 1st 2 button sets were completely rejected. One by a very talented fellow knitter who said the buttons looked cheap and that they should not be placed on this kind of work. The other by the instructor herself who claimed that the buttons were too small. This 'too small' was after I spent several hours at Windsor Buttons in Boston and had the customers vote on which they think would be a good candidate for my creation.
I got to the Good Yarn when they were closing and they had no choice but to close with me in it. I don't know how I manged to find this particular color but it seems somewhat perfect with its ability to completely blend into the fabric. The button hole section seen above took me all day. When I was done I was so tired that the fact that now another section has to be made where you sew on the buttons took me by complete surprise which really amused my instructor.

July 2nd, 2008
My dad wants me to lengthen this sweater. It was too short for a cardigan when I initially made it but I did not dare touch it. It was my 1st sweater ever. I still cringe at the thought that each new ball was twisted with the old string when I ran out of yarn which means that it can come out at any time. Anyhow I called Windsor buttons and dye lot is like second nature to me. It's like giving my name .. I did not even think about it. Of course no one is calling me back.

Things I want to kill my instructor for ..

1. The twisted string technique I used in this sweater since she never told me what to do in the 1st place
2. My mom's sleeves that we did not finish sewing because they were too tight
3. The zipper that I sewed on with double thread
4. Not telling me how to start sewing for a really long time
5. Not telling me the stripes on the shrug button should be horizontal
6. Teaching me to knit through the loop twice when she really should have shown me how to pick up in between stitches
7. Not emphasizing the importance of loose casting on for sleeves
8. Not centering the little thing on top of the hat
9. Not explaining why the yarn for my mom's sweater trim was difficult to work with
10. Not telling me WHY for a lot of things
11. Not warning me that the balloons on the baby sweater would be a difficult thing to do
12. Telling me the baby sweater was easy ..
13 .. and many others ..
14. Not really helping me with the pockets on this sweater for 7 hours..
15. Not telling me things intentionally ..
16. Seemingly enjoying my frustration

July 21st, 2008
I am loving the above. I took this sweater back from Dad so I can lengthen it. It looks a little crappy compared to what I make now but the tension on it is perfect. I have not been able to achieve perfect tension since I stopped pulling in each stitch. In order to figure out how much longer the sweater should be my dad brought out a 30 year old sweater he brought over from Russia. This sweater was remade from another sweater my dad had. I remember it. The stitch on the original looked like honeycomb. Someone took the honeycomb sweater and made it into a sweater and a vest by adding more yarn to it. Anyway I took a look at this 30 year old sweater and it's absolutely perfect .. everything about it is perfect. It has a zipper and the zipper is sewn on perfectly. I asked who made it and he said that it was my mom's friend. Naturally I asked my mom and she said it was long story and then she told me the story. I will mention it here. It was made by a woman whose mother was a seamstress. She lived with her mother in the same building as my mom and my grandmother. They lived on the second floor and my mom on the fourth. The woman's husband died in the war. She had a tiny pension and was raising 2 children. When her son was 16 years old he stole a loaf of bread from a kiosk and was sent to jail camp for 10 years. 10 years later when he got out he left for Israel. His sister could not get a job because her brother left for Israel. At the time that was the equivalent of a crime. My mom's father gave her a job at a factory he was in charge of and her and her mother were eternally grateful. The daughter made the sweaters for my dad. Her name was Lara Royanskaya. My mom said that last she heard she was in Australia. She eventually went to Israel but then left Israel for Australia. She was afraid that her grandson would be taken to the army if they remained in Israel. That's the story. The sweater is a cardigan. It has pockets, cables and slipped stitches in the middle which form tiny braids. The zipper is too long. I know my instructor knows how to shorten them but maybe Lara did not, or maybe you could not shorten that particular one so you can see the bottoms of it at the top sticking out next to the collar. I am sure at the time that sweater was a million times more amazing then something you could buy at a store. The binding off on the left sleeve separated and you can see the loops just sticking out in a few places. I am going to ask the instructor how to fix that if I do not forget.

August 5th, 2008
I told the instructor the above story. I felt like I wanted to make it real and keep it alive. The instructor separated the ribbing from the sweater. I undid one row, then I had to undo another and now I messed it up so I cannot knit up. Maybe I will figure it out tomorrow but not likely. I also cannot unravel the ribbing because the yarn is all stuck together. I feel like after a while of being as one the stitches kind of intertwine and you have to rip apart the intertwining pieces. Kind of like .. I cannot even think of an example. Like maybe something similar to a butterfly cocoon or like how stuff gets stuck in a spider web and then the spider makes it stuck more by weaving around it I think.

Винегрет

I am forced to write the title of this in Russian reason being had I chosen to title this post Vinaigrette it would have been totally lost in translation for in fact a salad was made. I don't know what the equivalent of this well known Russian dish is in English and do not feel like putting it in Google to satisfy my curiosity.


These are some daffodils I got at Russo's for an appealing $2.39 a bunch. The cashier mistook them for asparagus and when told that in fact these were flowers bellowed out "$2.39 each?"
I feel like Russo's is getting progressively worse since I first discovered it sometime around 2002.

Along with the daffodils I got 2 large beets, 2 carrots, 1 potato, a large plastic jar of pickles and cilantro. This is not a cooking blog so I am not going to go into detail as to what the recipe entails. Basically you cook everything that is too hard to chew and cube it into a bowl. I have no idea what the dressing is for it. I use oil but feel like some use vinegar and some something else. In any case my main point for this blog is to post my although slightly fuzzy in come cases photos of yesterday's event upon request of my closest friend Maria who thought I needed something to do for the day.


Not to be mean but I wish this somewhat imperfect software would stop posting photos other then the place I designate for them. I just had to move this poor photo of the bowl away from the introduction at the top where it originally ended up. Featured above are carrots, potatoes, cilantro and .. garlic. I sometimes tend to add stuff to my creations that do not technically belong there. In this case garlic is for that element of surprise when you least expect it. In all seriousness I like garlic and since I did not have any immediate plans to feed this to anyone else I figured this addition is more then appropriate.


These are some century old beets I picked up at Russo's. I could not wait for them to finish cooking and continuously terrorized them by inserting an IKEA fork to check for hardness. Note the fork wounds on both and the oozing side on the one on the left. This is my poor attempt at sounding like the ex medical professional that I am. I was going to throw in a mention of a quadrant but these fellows only have a body so I did not think left upper quadrant made any sense.


At some point the beets cooked of course and were chopped up along with the jar of pickles, some salt, pepper and oil. This is the finished product. I am not sure if this is the best photo I have but it gets the idea across. My mother thought cilantro was an atrocity but I had a cold and when I sniffed the dill at Russo's (something that I do to pick out vegetables which is not the most appropriate) because of a cold combined with my theory that Russo's has gone downhill I concluded that dill did not smell like dill and cilantro had a much more appropriate scent. Of course the Винегрет was delicious. I unfortunately had to eat the entire thing by myself since I have been somewhat antisocial recently and refuse to get my apartment to a level of cleanliness where strangers may be allowed inside.



V zaklucheniye as the Russians would say I could not resist an asparagus-daffodil update ..

Снег идет...

Today's winter thunderstorm triggered something in my head and this song came to mind. Sometimes other people manage to express how you feel a lot better then you are able. Unfortunately I could only find the lyrics to this song on a learn-to-play-guitar website. After carefully separating the text from the guitar chords it is posted below.

The title of the song is termed Snowfall or Snow is Falling. Neither one is an accurate description in English for when I hear Снег идет... different images come to mind verses when I hear Snowfall .. or Snow is falling .. . Снег идет... to me is more immediate. This could be because one language was learned in full before the other and words described in one will forever carry a deeper sense of significance.

Getting back to the song words like the literary"буран", the allusive lines such as "сходит наземь небосвод" and the melancholy favorite"может быть, за годом год следуют, как снег идет" seemed to have evaded me the last time I came across this song which was quite sometime ago. Possibly because the parts of the songs more pertinent to my life at the time shut out the less familiar words and thoughts the author was trying to tell.

I am torn between explaining my mind and attempting to maintain some sort of blog professionalism simultaneously which makes me wonder that maybe the photograph and the song would have been sufficient for this post. In any case after a quite lengthy introduction here is the song:

«Снег идет»

Снег идет, снег идет
К белым звездочкам в буране
тянутся цветы герани
за оконный переплет.

Снег идет, и все в сметенье,
все пускается в полет -
черной лестницы ступени,
перекрестка поворот.

Снег идет, снег идет,
словно падают не хлопья,
а в заплатаном солопе
сходит наземь небосвод.

Словно с видом чудака
с верхней лестничной площадки
крадучись, играя в прятки,
сходит небо с чердака.

Потому, что жизнь не ждет.
Не оглянешься - и святки.
Только промежуток краткий,
смотришь, там и новый год.

Снег идет, густой-густой.
В ногу с ним, стопами теми,
в том же темпе, с ленью той
или с той же быстротой,

может быть, проходит время?
Может быть, за годом год
слеуют, как снег идет,
или как слова в поэме?
Может быть, проходит время,
может быть, за годом год?..

Снег идет, снег идет,
снег идет, и все в смятенье:
убеленный пешеход,
удивленные растенья,
перекрестка поворот.


Снег идет,
снег идет...
Снег идет,
снег идет...


Сергей Никитин