Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Speaking of Knitting by Candlelight

During the week of the 14th my friends who live near the coast were without power for up to four days because of a wicked storm that ripped through the state.

Four day. Can you even imagine?

I had to brag that during the five years we've lived in our house we've only lost power once for around 15 minutes.

These are statistics that should not be said aloud as it brings you to the attention of the blackout gremlins.

At Least an Hour
Yep, I was playing online last night when "click" everything went dark.

The dogs flipped out. As though barking would help the situation or make the lights turn back on.

I had to use my cellphone as a flashlight to get downstairs to the real flashlight to dig in the drawer for the electric match to light a bunch of candles.

At first Samson was like, "Whatever," and went into the puppy fort. Baru was sticking to my heels. Later on Samson came down, too.

My main concerns were zombies, vampires, and that damn sewer ejector. I was acutely aware that I couldn't run any water since I don't know how big that tank is or how long the power would be out. I tried not to think about what we'd do if it was an extended outage.

Happily, it was only about an hour. It finally occurred to me to call the electric company. The recording said 1 a.m., but five minutes after I hung up the lights came back on. Of course the dogs freaked out again, which was about as helpful as when they flipped out when the lights went out.

I spent most of the time wandering around the house with my five stick candelabra feeling rather gothic. Samson and I peered out the windows to see if the neighbor's had power and saw what we thought was an electric company truck go by.

I got hardly any knitting done. Mainly because I couldn't decide where to settle. I debated hiding in the bedroom, but didn't think I could light myself well. I decided on the living room with the candles lined up on the coffee table.

Turns out the bedroom might have been a better choice. When I gave up and went to bed I put the candelabra on my dresser, which has a big, tri-fold mirror. Of course that caught the light, amplified it, and threw it back into the room.

A girl can't win.

This has potential
I was just reading Pam's blog post about these fancy cable decreases.

I might have to try them on my Schleppy Sweater. If I ever get to the Raglan decreases. I think I saw someone mention these on Ravelry a few days ago. It was intriguing, but there wasn't a good description.

However, my yarn is pretty loud, I mean, colorful so the detail might not show up.

2 comments:

  1. Love this candlelight knitting story. At least with knitting, unlike quilting, you don't need anything power driven or electrical to work on your craft. As long as you have a way to light your candles.

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  2. I'm so glad that I'm not the only one concerned about zombies during a power outage. They know that's when they can be all sneeky and then BAM! Your brains are zombie breakfast.

    This is why our emergency bag is also a "HOLY S#!T the zombies are invading!!" bag. :D

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