Welcome Back to Starry Knits!

Hello everyone! How good it is to be back up and about. What started out to be a short hiatus got a lot more complicated than we ever anticipated, but thanks to all your prayers and God's faithfulness, my lungs are slowly healing from the three infections that seemed to attack from nowhere.

Probably the most surprising thing through all this was the profound weakness that overtook my entire being, both mentally and physically. I would have thought that I could at least pass the recovery time by knitting and crocheting. As it turned out, even the simplest patterns were beyond my comprehension and my hands shook so badly that I couldn't hold onto one, much less two, needles. But many thanks to my dear friend, Leslie, at crochetbug.com who suggested that I get a ball of yarn and a hook and, if nothing else, crochet a skein's worth of chain stitches, just to keep the rhythm in my hands going. What a thought! And never being one to back down from a challenge, rather than waste an entire skein of precious stash on chains, I dug out a pattern I had been "saving" for a rainy day, and...

From favecrafts Crafts Collection by Bernat, the pattern is called Crochet Square Curtains. It's a really cool geometric pattern for window panels. The windows in Steve's office and my studio are sadly bare -- I keep telling myself it's part of the minimalist design in those rooms.

The filet crochet in a shaded box pattern is made up in a relatively simple repeat of only 66 stitches. That's easy enough for my brain to keep up with and my eyes can recognize a mistake before it gets miles away from me. My hands can handle the ch 2 and dc combinations, and the #10 crochet cotton thread worked with a #6 steel hook make me concentrate on regaining my coordination without totally frustrating me. Most of all, it's done wonders for my creative sense of self which I feel is coming back to life. Many, many thanks to Leslie and I'm really looking forward to our visit in June!

In the meantime, I thought I'd share the progress I've made on the first panel...

And, as if that were not enough excitement for one day, just as I began gathering my thoughts and started writing yesterday, I received an email from Tina, who writes another of my favorite blogs, PeacefullyKnitting.com, letting me know that I had won first prize in her blog contest. I entered on a whim since I never win these things. The prize, really a prize-winner itself, is a pattern for a luscious lace shawl, Memoria, designed by Deborah Glaser. Hope I can do Deborah's amazing design justice. You can see her stunning design in the photo below.

Photo © ObliviousKnits – Used with permission

More of Deborah's designs are available on her Ravelry page:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/sources/obliviousknits/patterns

Deborah also has a Facebook page at:

http://www.facebook.com/ObliviousKnits

Again, I cannot tell you how great it is to be back with you. For the time being, I think I will keep the Starry Knits postings to once a week on Mondays. That way we can plan on starting our weeks off together. Looking forward to seeing you again soon,

Warmly with Wool and Cool as Cotton,
Maddy