Secrets of the Universe

When I was a little kid, the absolute worst thing you could say to me was "I've got a surprise for you" tomorrow or next week or next month or in fact anytime besides now. I couldn't stand the mystery, and (future control freak developing here) I couldn't stand that someone else knew something that they were withholding from me on purpose, knowing that I knew they knew something I didn't know.

I didn't like the display of their power over me. (Knowledge is power, right?)

With age I have learned that there are forces not worth railing against, as there's no solution, with no way of my forcing one, having limited time and resources (and interest, if it comes to that), and it's not necessarily even fun.

I'm sort of ok with not knowing exactly why the Big Bang happened, or whether or not there's actually sentient life anywhere else, or whether people will really live on other planets (I don't mean like the space station. I mean living, like families, kids, jobs, theatres, that sort of thing), or other equally unanswerables, but there are smaller mysteries that ought to have answers.

Like this mystery package.

Yesterday my brother and I were on Skype, coordinating dates and places for our trip to Oz in a few months (he's getting one of these (check out the link. It's really cool) as guest accommodations) and he asked if ever I'd received the hair washing things FOR HIS LITTLE GIRLS.

Why on earth he had one only thingie (he has two daughters) sent to me with no note enclosed, I have no idea, and I was too delighted at having the mystery solved to ask, but the funny thing is, apparently the little girls have suddenly become perfectly fine with having their hair washed. I guess I'll take it to them in Oz. Lucky I didn't give it to the woman at work with a three-year-old girl.

There's been knitting happening, and I even have a halfway decent picture to prove it.

The lacy part is the collar, which is simply a rectangle. I picked up stitches for the neck, and am working raglan increases as the collar simultaneously grows. I've just reached the end of the collar, at which point I'll discontinue the lacy pattern and solid raspberry yarn, and continue in the round with the main yarn, in the usual raglan fashion.

It's a fairly lightweight yarn with which I'm using bigger needles (three and three-quarter millimetres) than I usually would (I like somewhat dense knitting; I think it wears better), so I'm not exactly sure how far it'll go. I'm hoping to not be forced to make a deep hem in non-main yarn, though I'm fine with having six inches of sleeve the same as the collar. I'm sort of planning on it.

I might make it: I have thirteen-plus ounces of yarn that's somewhere between sport- and fingering weight, and even though it's handspun, it's not all that dense. My handspun is generally fairly lofty.

I also completed the chain/rope/stitch I was messing with a few days ago.

It's not super-fast, but it's also not as slow as I'd feared.

The bracelet is the class sample; I'm making myself a vee-shaped necklace in the same stitch in greens, and then (unless I get distracted or bored, which probably amounts to the same thing) I'm going to make a cuff (same stitch again) which is wider and reversible and has some other colour configuration.

The narrow rope lends itself to clasp attachment quite neatly; a wider cuff may be a little more problematic.

And finally:

If you remove the drawer, then you should expect a kitten to fill the space, especially when the fit is so perfect.