Floret Socks - Done!

This morning I finally finished up my second Floret sock.  I finished up the patterned part of the foot last night, and just had the toe to do this morning.  Even with my new right eye I had some challenges with the grafting of the toe when I got to the snugging up the graft.  I had to resort to my crafting glasses to get enough close up acuity to grab the correct stitch legs. Despite the fact that the prescription is off at this point, it was enough to get me what I needed.  The mono vision works fine for day to day stuff around the house, but I’m going to want glasses that enable me to bring both of my eyes to bear on some tasks.  I have an appointment with an optometrist the first week of February.

I would have finished these socks earlier this week except that I got distracted by an excellent book - No Man’s Land by Sarah A. Hoyt.  It is a single book published in three volumes and I pretty much devoured all three volumes in three days.  I didn’t do much else but read, no knitting, no spinning, no piano playing, just reading.  It has been a while since I have found a book that engaged me that much.  There is more in the series to come, and I’m looking forward to that.

Pattern:  Floret by Makenzie Alvarez

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Resilient Sock

Needle:  US 1.5 (2.5 mm)

Floret Sock - Second Sock Heel Done!

I worked the heel and gusset on Sunday, now I am working the foot, just four and a half repeats of the motif to go before I do to the toe shaping.  I’m still adjusting to my new eyes, and they are still settling, but they are working pretty well for me.

Pattern:  Floret by Makenzie Alvarez

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Resilient Sock

Needle:  US 1.5 (2.5 mm)

Floret Sock - Second Sock Leg Done!

My new right eye is working quite well, and I was able to finish the leg of the second sock, working on it yesterday and today.  I haven’t worked on this project since the day before my first surgery (on the left eye).  Prior to my surgery, I had been using bifocal crafting glasses, that had the near field set for where I hold my knitting, and the top part set for watching TV, but when I used them my IPad would not be in focus unless I leaned forward to peer at it, which made using knitCompanion annoying.  Now I can see my knitting, and my IPad, and watch TV, without glasses, and without having to move closer to anything.  It really is nice.  I’m still getting used to things, but so far, so good.  On to the heel!  And that black blob with a tail to the right of my foot is my cat Jezebel, she finds my knitting needles fascinating.

Pattern:  Floret by Makenzie Alvarez

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Resilient Sock

Needle:  US 1.5 (2.5 mm)

Fika Shawl - Cast On!

I actually cast this on back on November 30, before my first cataract surgery.  It is the first pattern in the 2025 Onling Advent calendar.  The pattern is pretty simple, it has an I-cord edge, and the ribbed cables periodically, and increases at the edges and at the center on the right side rows.  But the yarn is on the darker side, which made working on it pre-surgery a little bit of a challenge.  I was able to work on it after my first surgery (which gave me distance vision in my left eye) provided I had good light, and I was able to work a couple of rows last night after my second surgery (which gave me near vision in my right eye).  I’m still getting used to my new eyes, but I’m able to read, and play piano, and work on the computer, and drive, so things are pretty good.  Not having any astigmatism any more is also really wonderful.  The acuity is amazing.  It is also very nice not having the yellow tint changing all of my colors (black and white movies were a little sepia toned).

I had a very interesting experience last week while I was putting up my Bowflex after exercising, part of the equipment perfectly bisected my visual field so that on one side I was seeing with my left eye and on the other I was seeing with my right eye and so I was able to simultaneously see the effects of the no-cataract/cataract on my vision.  It helped that I was looking out a window at our snowy lawn, which gave me a pretty dramatic contrast.  Things are also brighter, which is also great.  It is amazing how our brains adapt to these changes without you even realizing it, and how quickly it adapts back when things are fixed.

The yarn is Onling No. 4, 100% Fine Organic Merino Wool, and it is fingering weight (50 g / 200 m)

Pattern:  Fika by Inge-Lis Holst

Yarn:  Onling No. 4

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Pan’s Shawl - Finished!

I focused on my Pan’s Shawl while my left eye healed from my cataract surgery and I waited for the surgery on my right eye.  That surgery was this morning, and so far things are looking pretty good, even though my right eye is still very dilated.

I actually finished up this shawl back on December 14, and it dried very quickly when I blocked it (overnight, in fact - winter!).

I wasn’t one hundred percent sold on the color for the border, even while I was knitting it, but I think it works.  It is bright and dramatic, and fun.  It took me a few days to get a beauty shot, due to the fact that we had some snow last weekend and it hung around for a few days.

Pattern:  Improvised Boomerang Shawl

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiri 

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Pan’s Shawl - Making Progress!

One of the projects that I can easily work on while going through the cataract surgery process is my Pan’s Shawl.  I am getting to the point where I need to start thinking about the color to use for the knit-on edging.  I have a choice of three colors that were dyed up as part of this Pandemic 2020 set.  There was also a blue skein, but that one has already been used as part of my Joy to The World - Cindy Shawl.

Right now I am leaning towards the yellow skein, which is conveniently already caked up, as that will provide a nice color pop, even though the yellow is not a dominant color in the multi-colored skein that I used for the body.  I love these boomerang shawls.  They are a great way to use up single skeins, or remnants of mini-skeins, they are easy to wear, and you can always tie the ends behind your back and turn them into a shrug if you’re washing dishes or cooking and don’t want your shawl getting in the way.  You can also just wrap them around your neck like a scarf.  So versatile!

Pattern:  Improvised Boomerang Shawl

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiri

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

A Temporary Disruption in Activities

Back in the fall of 2024, as I was heading in to the terminal leave phase of my upcoming retirement, I had my yearly visit to my eye doctor, at which we discussed the progress of my cataracts.  I had started to notice some annoying visual effects in my left eye, especially when using computer monitors.  These were due, my eye doctor informed me, to the way the cataract in my left eye was refracting the light coming in to my eye.  We updated my prescription, and I began my terminal leave.  One of the regular activities that I restarted was practicing piano, but the first time I played after getting my new glasses I had trouble focusing the notes on the music page.  I have glasses just for playing piano, which have not been updated for a few years, and when I alternated which eye I looked through I realized that the left eye, and the annoying visual effects, was the culprit, so I put a cardboard patch over that lens and proceeded with my practice.  I then spent the next few days training my brain to ignore the visual input from my left eye, which has been my dominant eye all my life.  The reprogramming was successful, but it did take a good deal of brain processing power to maintain, leaving me fatigued by early evening.

Over the course of the next year I began to notice that I needed more light when I was knitting.  I started using my Lumos neck light more and more often in order to see my stitches, and I was still dealing with mental fatigue and eye strain, which at times resulted in headaches.  When I went back for my annual visit to the eye doctor last fall, we again discussed my cataracts, and she asked if I had noticed needing more light.  Ha!  It turns out that in addition to the yellowing of my lens, I also was getting fogging of my lens and, even though my vision could still be corrected, we decided that with the degradation in the quality of life I should go ahead and get cataract surgery.  We started with the left eye, as that was the worst, and she suggested that the right eye could wait, even another year.  So at the end of October I went to an ophthalmologist and was evaluated for cataract surgery.  Given that all my life my left eye has been far-sighted and my right eye has been near-sighted, we decided that mono-vision would work well for me.  This past Thursday I had the cataract surgery on my left eye, with an upgraded lens that also fixed my astigmatism.  I love my new left eye, the visual acuity is amazing.  So when I went in for the follow-up appointment on Friday we scheduled the right eye for December 18th.  So, I’m getting new eyes for Christmas.

I have not worn my glasses since the surgery, as my right eye is adequate, although not perfect, for seeing near field.  I also have an astigmatism in my right eye, which is worse than the one that was in my left, but it is mostly noticeable when looking at a distance.  The best part about the getting my left eye fixed is the increase in my mental energy and the fact that I no longer get fatigued in early evening (falling asleep while watching television at 0830 in the evening kind of sucks).  However, given the current limitations of my right eye, some knitting projects are easier to work on than others - small needles and dark yarn are a little bit of a challenge, so I will be focusing on different projects until I get my right eye fixed.  By early next year everything should be all healed up and I can go back to my eye doctor and see what I might need in the way of glasses.  In the meantime I have multiple eyedrops to put in my eye multiple times a day, for which I created a tracking spreadsheet, and in two weeks I will have two eyes to deal with, but I’ve already made up the spreadsheet for my right eye (easy enough to do, I just had to change the dates).  My physical activity is also a bit curtailed until everything is healed up - I don’t want to screw up the surgery and have to go back and get it redone.  I am super-excited about getting new eyes, and not having to wear glasses all the time is a novel experience, after 50 years, that I’m still getting used to.  The process is pretty disruptive, what with all the appointments and the eye drops and the physical activity limitations, but this way I will get it all done and dusted, and after seeing what a new lens has done for my distance vision, I am looking forward to seeing what it will do for my near vision.