Unexpected

 Two projects currently underway are nearing completion. The amaryllis is looking forward to its "long winter's nap" and shedding leaves as fast as it can. See how much chlorophyll is gone!

And soon I find the leaf totally resigned and happy to be gone.

When I put the bulb into this pot, I squeezed it gently and it felt very mushy. I wondered for a minute if I should even keep it, but put it in the pot and carried on. Now when I squeeze the exposed bit, there is resistance. The fertilizer, the water and the sunshine have done the job.

I wonder how long it will take the bulb to learn it is in the northern hemisphere and really should be blooming come spring, not hibernating to bloom at Christmas.

The other job at hand is a different way to close the toe of a sock. I invented my own way years ago.

I've always worked a wedge style toe, but instead of grafting, I crochet the remaining stitches together. After the obligatory decreases on both sides of the top and the sole, I put the top and bottom stitches on two needles.

Holding the two needles together and using a small crochet hook I took off the first back and front stitches and pulled front stitch through the back. Then the next front and back and pulled the back stitch through. Then the next back and front, and so on. Pull the end through and work in.

That crochet hook is lost, missing from the knitting bag when I went searching to finish that last pair of socks. It is an old steel hook, with a softly rounded tip, size 0 or 00. Still available in my childhood. Now they all seem to be aluminum or bamboo, and do not slip easily through a size one yarn loop.

I thought I'd try some decrease that would leave fewer than the twenty ending stitches I currently have, so I could simply pull the yarn through the remaining. I've done that now, using a wedge toe, and it's almost too ugly to show.

So, I will rippit back and try something else. And finally, I intend to find more interesting topics for future essays.