Hiya Hiya Corona Virus and Flowers From My Sister's Garden

I have started the ridiculous scarf over again. In truth, I have started it over several times since last night. I finally have decided that I am not as inept as this pattern is making me out to be. I have been using the wrong needles (at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.) My go to needle is Knit Picks Sunstruck, which is a birch needle and not terribly pointy even for the size 2 needle. It is a really great needle in regards to warmth and molding to hands during knitting. But with this yarn, the needle has been repeatedly slipping down and instead of pushing through to the back of the loop, it pushes through the mother loop (or loop on the row directly below the one I want to knit). I decided that to amend this I need a sharper, more pointy needle. As luck has it, I have a nice pair of Hiya Hiya circulars. I'm not sure where I purchased them. I probably found them at Tuesday Morning, but I have had them forever. Unfortunately I have to give up a bit on the length of the cord. My Knit Picks have a 40 inch circular and the Hiya Hiya are only 32. Either is sufficient to knit a scarf, but I may have to resort to point protectors when I'm not actively knitting. They keep stitches from falling off the needles when not in use.

Hiya Hiya needles are an upscale btand. That is why I suspect that I purchased them at Tuesday Morning. I simply object to paying premium prices for just about everything. A lot of "professional" knitters prefer them. Knit Picks is a moderate priced set. You aren't going to see a knitting community guru on YouTube touting using them if he or she wants to impress anyone. But they are really nice needles. Just not the right one for this project. I need something that is going to poke into the space I want it to go into without me paying an undue amount of attention to it.

Also, I think my penchant for knitting by the light of my very dim Victorian lamp in the wee hours of the morning isn't helping much to get this project done and  looking somewhat acceptable. I prefer the dimmer lights in the evening, thinking that it will help me get to sleep. And I excuse not being able to see the item that I'm working on by thinking that I should be able to knit it from feel. Millennia's of women knitted in the evening by candle light, right? Yeah, I'm not as good as them. Daylight Savings Time begins next week. That should give me a few extra hours to knit with decent light. Oh well, I'll get it done eventually. Or it will be stuck in a bag and forgotten along with countless other projects I have going. I think that at some point I will need the needles and go finish a couple of them

In other new, it has been confirmed that the Coronavirus has come to King County. Since people have the virus two weeks before they show symptoms, I would guess that it has actually been here for a few weeks. The funny thing is that while we were in Panera yesterday a man stood right beside me as he sneezed without attempting to cover his mouth and nose. I joked that in the coming weeks actions like that will make him a pariah. Maybe I should have been a bit more concerned.

It seems that we should have been expecting a pandemic of some sort. It is historical that each century is ushered in with one. In 1817 the first Cholera Pandemic hit. It killed 150,000 people in the US. In 1918 the Spanish Flu killed 50 million people worldwide. We are right on target for another round of population culling infection. Not really surprising at all. I think the main difference is our ability to obtain global news and worry over it.

In happier news, Nora came over last night and brought us some spring flowers. One year when she was in high school she planted a bunch of spring bulbs for Karen as a Christmas gift. A few years later when Karen and Jim divorced, Karen was sad because she was leaving her flowers behind. Now every year Nora goes over and cuts them when they come up and brings them to her mother to enjoy. When her father objects, she tells him that he flowers were never for him in the first place. It makes Karen uncommonly happy to have them.   I wonder at the feasibility of helping Nora dig the bulbs up next fall and transplant them into flower boxes that we can have with us wherever we go. We don't have any plans to move from here in the near future. But eventually that will happen. I guess, assuming that we survive the pandemic.