Belle Dame Sans Merci

Beautiful and dangerous.

We had severe weather last night, and awoke in the morning to this: a fairyland of crystalline trees.

Every twig is encased in a thick, glassy coating of ice.

We often get one or two of these ice storms each winter. As one might expect, they make for dangerous roads and downed power lines. The trees groan with the extra weight of the ice. As damaging as our ice storms can be, I still can't help but appreciate them. They are oh, so beautiful.

On the knitting front, I too feel as if I'm trapped in ice. The Pine Bark sweater parts are under- going a mild preliminary blocking. I stitched the shoulder seams in a fever of impatience, draped the front and back over me hoping to see how well my design had worked, and found that I couldn't really tell, as curly and lumpy as it was. So I wielded a spray bottle lustily, smoothed the lumps and wrinkles into temporary submission, and put each part down for a rest under a damp towel. That was night before last. Perhaps the towels were a bit too damp. After two days, still, the pieces are not completely dry.

So I'm at a standstill for the time being. Though I toy a little with the other knitting projects, my heart's not in it. I want to get back to Pine Bark and give it a neckband and see if it will look the way I imagined it.

But, for now, I'll just enjoy the moment.