Feels like forEVER since I was here, but really just a week or so.

I had my cataract surgery on Tuesday, so I’m still within the first week of recovery.  They told me no heavy lifting and no bending over for 7-10 days, as my eyes heal and adjust to a ‘new normal.’  Each day I can see things a little better, but it will be a month before I can think about getting new glasses.  As expected, my distance vision is sooo much better, and my close-up vision is shot to hell, which is the exact opposite of my lifetime of near-sightedness.

I am planning to be dyeing yarns again with a collection of Blog Reader Specials to show next weekend, probably Friday.  It will be interesting to see how colors might be different, or if anything has really changed much in the way I see and dye the yarns.

The weirdness (for me, anyway) is that I sometimes get a sort of sea-sick sensation if I try to do too much with my eyes.   It’s part of the healing process as my eyes adjust, so I’m not too concerned, just annoyed.

I haven’t talked to anyone who has had both eyes done at the same time. Most people who have mentioned their cataract surgery have either only had one eye done, or had surgeries separated by a month or so.  I don’t have the luxury of knocking off from work for 7-10 days twice, nor do I want the aggravation of having to adjust to ‘one good eye, one healing eye.’   Just get it done and be over it.  I’ve always been that way, though — I had all four wisdom teeth pulled the same day, had carpal tunnel surgery done on boh hands the same day, and so forth.

Anyway, my recovery plan was to sit with movies and knitting most of the time.   I had started a couple of very simple beanie caps, thinking I could just knit round and round without having to focus a lot.  Having my eyes fixed hasn’t improved my ability to knit for long periods, and my hands just don’t put up with hours and hours of power-knitting as I once did.

These are the two hats I’m working on to fill my time:

They both started the same.   Superwash Merino, worsted weight yarn. Starting with a size 7, 16-inch circular needle, cash on 96 and work  K1, P1 ribbing until you are utterly bored with that.  On the gray hat I switched to size 8 after the ribbing, and increased 8 stitches evenly around — easiest way is to *Knt 11, Kfb, repeat from * around.  You’ll end up with 104 stitches.

I’m thinking of continuing the ribbing all the way through on the blue hat.

With luck I will have at least one hat finished by the weekend.  🙂

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