I finished the first 1/4 of the Dolman Updated sweater (the right back piece). I've begin the left front, which is the second piece in the order that the pattern was written. (Luckily, I found out about the corrections to the pattern before I got far enough for them to be an issue.)

Pictures tonight, if I get done with my fieldwork in good time.

I also cleaned up my house this weekend, including scrubbing the floors (something I don't do, at least to the level of detail I like, all that often). I hope this will hold me at least through exam week now.

Also, my ISP changed the webmail interface somewhat. Now, when you log out, it says "'bye now, see you soon!" which just makes me laugh. (I think my ISP is based in Atlanta or Nashville or somewhere like that; they SHOULD have said "Y'all come back now, ya hear?")

And, once again, Anne comments on something I've noticed: "I'm convinced that academics MUST have hobbies that reside in three dimensions..."

Yes, so very true. So much of what we do is intangible and evanescent - the grading I did this week will be followed by a pile of very similar, barely distinguishable grading the next. The journal article I submit will get returned to me with eleventy-one helpful yet contradictory suggestions for its improvement. The lectures and discussions I so lovingly prepare (or not, when I'm really pressed for time) get used up and have to be replaced with new ones a week later.

It is really not that much unlike doing housework, where the clothes get dirty again and dust resettles on the floor, and what you've done, there's no evidence of it in a few weeks.

But with knitting - oh, let me sing the praises of knitting, and also sewing, quilting, crochet - when something is done to your satisfaction, it stays done. You can point to it as evidence that you were there, that you worked, that you did something with your hands. And a well-made sweater can last a lifetime, or longer, with proper care.

And yet, at the same time, knitting, as concrete and "real" as it is, allows "do-overs." You don't like the way the wool works in that sweater pattern? Unravel, wash, try something new. Make a big mistake? Rip back, and do it over. Wind up with a stitch or two short, but it's not that critical until a later point? Make a couple surreptitious increases. Or rip back and do it "right," if such a "cheat" bothers you.

In real life, mistakes can't easily be undone. They can be apologized for, the harm can be fixed, yet somehow, the taint of the error remains. You have the subtle feeling that people wonder if you're slipping, getting sloppy, if you've taken on too much. With knitting, no one has to know that you made an error and fixed it, unless they were directly watching you when you made it. And that is something I need, that forgiving and forgetting quality, as I am someone who tends to endlessly flog myself after even a fairly simple error caused by inattention or having too many things going on.