Wrinkles

The wrinkles that I am getting are mostly from smiling, or looking worried. It paints a picture of a fairly benign sort of person. This is because I don't frown: I have a special stony expression I use, which doesn't activate those frown muscles. I have faint frown lines, but clearly I save a full-on frown for special occasions, while radiating an air of disapproval whenever disapproval is needed. This is not a conscious thing, but it is clearly standing me in good stead.

Of course, they are not really wrinkles; not yet. Just lines, and not big ones at that. Well, not very deep. I mean, I wouldn't want to give you the impression that I look really old just yet. In fact, I was id-ed only the other month. No, what makes me look really old is the scarf that I have taken to knitting.

It will be a big scarf: long, and very wide indeed. I have been searching for the perfect scarf for a while (long and wide enough to wear over a sleeveless dress, lightweight enough not to strangle me, soft enough for me to adore it an unreasonably large amount, and black enough to hide the dirt), and have failed in this task. I am therefore knitting an alternative which will be the correct size, more or less, the correct colour, and the correct softness.

This project would be easier if I could really knit. I've done rather a lot of rows of stitches (I'm knitting all the way here, it you're interested: not a purl in sight), but I am somewhat of an amateur. I am aided by this idea I have that I shall Succeed, and my stony look whenever a stitch tries to escape. They try repeatedly, the little buggers, especially the two on the ends. Every. Single. Time.

You'd have thought I'd have grown wise to that by now. I mean, theoretically at least, I am the intelligent one in this situation. I know that it makes little leaps for freedom each time, on account of the reduced friction on the new needle at that point, and I understand that things which happen once will often happen again. There isn't really anything I am lacking to enable me not to drop the knitting (requiring me to reconstruct the stitches to the best of my ability; I'm judging this in 2015, when the scarf has been completed. Did I mention that it will be very big?) except for the co-ordination. Which is strange, as I have recently prevented an awful lot of things from falling to the floor in a timely manner (the preventing is timely, not the falling. That is very rarely timely), which I didn't used to be able to do. I thought I had it down. But no, I do not.

By the end of the scarf, I should have perfected the knit stitch. I'll post photos on this blog when it's done, assuming the Internet still exists then. You can't wait, can you?