Holy cats! I got the macro setting on my camera to work! I’ve been battling with it for weeks — there’s something about the Canon Powershot S40’s and S45’s finicky macro setting that makes close-ups nearly impossible.

I was driven by a mad urge to take knitting photography out to the edge where Brooklyn Tweed lives, or where Interweave Knits finally is after they taught their photographers about focusing. (I used to play the “What’s the focus of this picture?” with that magazine, trying to determine which single part of the photo wasn’t a blurred-out, indistinguishable mess. “Model’s forehead” was a popular answer, along with “definitely not the knitted garment.” Best answer: “the non-knitted handbag in the foreground that has nothing to do with the pattern.”)

The S45 isn’t quite my boyfriend’s Canon Digital Rebel, which has spoiled me for little pocket cameras, but it’s competent enough — except for that damn zoom. The trick seems to be using the lowest aperture, propping my elbows on the desk to form a tripod, zooming all the way out, and praying.
I’ve been an atheist since I was 13 — any camera that requires prayer to keep a shot from being a blobby mess can kiss my ass.

Aaaanyway, in the picture is, like, an inch of the Odessa I’m making for the Pretty in Pink contest. I’m omitting the beads and I’m knitting it with lifted increases instead of yarnovers, to keep from having little holes in the fabric, but otherwise I’m sticking to the pattern.

When I was pawing through my yarn, looking for something soft enough for a chemo cap, I saw the cashmere … and I faltered. It was one of the only things soft enough to work that I didn’t already have set aside for another project, but dude … cashmere. My only cashmere. It’s a mind-bendingly delicious souvenir from my stint at the yarn store, a leftover from a store-sample swatch. It’s been parked in my yarn bin for over a year because nobody, including myself, deserves anything made from yarn this buttery-soft.

I think there’s something wrong in my head because every time I pat the yarn, my mouth waters. It’s not like full-blown synthaesia — I don’t smell orange blossoms or hear music when I cast on with it, or anything as awesome as that — but it’s still completely amazing yarn. Kinda makes me wish I had a ball band for it so I had a prayer (More prayer? WTF? I don’t like this trend) of finding it again. A hat made of this yarn would be an amazing gift, and one I’d be really proud to give, but … dude. My only cashmere. I picked up some black 100-percent merino instead and put the blue one back in its little plastic Ziploc bag.

After a little swatching, I saw I had two options with the merino: I could knit it on the recommended size and get a thick, fluffy fabric, but it would stretch out too much and let bare scalp show through. Eeek. Smaller needles gave better coverage, but they also gave a dense, unappealing fabric.

I sighed, and dug out the cashmere. I don’t wear soft blue-green, anyway.