I’ve been writing this blog for over 10 years. This is my 588th post. So it is fair to say, that I feel comfortable here. I know my voice, I know how it feels to be in the flow, and I know when my voice feels authentic.

Since I tested positive for Covid almost 7 weeks ago I have really struggled to engage in any way with the blog, and at a more fundamental level with my knitting, or with anything else for that matter. In the beginning, in the acute phase, I literally had no energy, and also no breath, to do anything. No knitting, no reading, no writing. I suffered from brain fog and fatigue, and a vicious cough.

I was very nearly finished with a great knitting project just as I got sick. It needed only about 5-6 hours of work, adding a small amount of ribbing to armholes and neck, and weaving in ends. I think I expected that I would recuperate, and then pick up the knitting and blogging again without issue. What I have found is that there are many ingredients to this blogging experience, and I am recovering at different rates for each of these.

It started with my being able to knit. Not for long, as exhaustion really rode me hard, but after a month of no activity, I could pick up the needles and do some knitting. However, I couldn’t manage anything that involved thinking. A few days ago, I tried to pick up some stitches under the arm on another project – 12 stitches – and knit them in pattern. The pattern was K2P1 – not rocket science. I spent an hour trying to do it, and finally gave up. I could knit, but I couldn’t concentrate on a knitting task. So, the fingers worked, but the brain fog got in the way.

I finished the Myrtle tank 2 weeks ago, and it is beautiful. I want to share it with you. I want to blog about it. Every day I thought “Today I will brush my hair, and put on the tank, and model it, while Doug takes some photos.” And every day, I just couldn’t do it. I never noticed how much effort that part of the process took. Today, we finally took some photos. They are not the best photos given that I still look sick and pasty, but the knitting looks good.

So: sweater finished: check! Photos taken: check! And I can’t write the bloody post. I tried three times today to work on the post, and no matter what I write, it doesn’t sound like me. It feels fake. It feels like someone else is writing it. I want my voice back! (Funnily enough, writing this doesn’t seem too bad, so maybe that means that my whiny voice is back, while the rest of me is lost in translation.)

In the first week with Covid, Doug and I both lost our sense of taste and smell and it still hasn’t returned. Everything feels flat when you can’t taste. That’s sort of the way my writing feels: flat. It’s missing the sweet and sour, the spicy and umami, the bit that gives it character. Has anyone else experienced this? I expected the fatigue, the brain fog, the effort, the lack of mojo, but not the loss of authentic voice.

Please bear with me. I’ve got some good knitting to show you, once I get all the ingredients back.

Do you remember when the sleeve was the most boring part of your sweater? When you would get stuck on “sleeve island”? When you reached the point where all that’s left is the sleeves, and you realised that you absolutely must cast on something new right away? When how long someone’s arms were was a good indicator of whether or not they would be on your sweater knitting gift list? (I once even wrote a post entitled “Do you love your husband enough to knit the sleeves?” It was a rather silly post, but still wins a prize for title and sentiment.)

Well, I don’t know if you have noticed, but today it seems it is all about the sleeve. I see more and more patterns where the sleeve is a definite focal point. Here are a few recent ones that I like:

Mulgi by Aleks Byrd:

Ornata by Teti Lutsak:

Kote ( 籠手 ) by Hiroko Payne / The Hare And The Crow:

Trinity by Jennifer Beale:

Giselle Blouse by Fabel Knitwear

Are you planning a new project with fantastic scene-stealing sleeves? If so, let us know.

(Health update: Both Doug and I are recovering, but much more slowly than anticipated. I have finished a project – my Myrtle tank – but don’t yet have the energy to photograph it and write it up. Hopefully, I can show it to you soon, because it is really cute.)

Let me start by offering a heartfelt thank you to all of you who left messages for me here and on Ravelry. Your best wishes were very much appreciated, and gave us some cheer. As Emma reported previously, Doug and I have both been struck down by Covid, and it was nasty. My word for everyone: be cautious.

I have read comments from knitters about how having Covid gave them lots of opportunity to sit and knit. That has not been my experience. We were both quite sick and have had some unsettling and scary consequences brought on by the infection. We have been at the hospital three times in the last two weeks, had paramedics in the house multiple times, and had two late-night ambulance rides. Doug has had multiple brain scans, and managed to scare me to death at least once.

We have also been overwhelmed with the kindness of neighbours, friends, and colleagues, who have kept in touch, checked up on us, and done shopping and pharmacy runs. We have also been very well supported by the NHS in every way, and have had the best experiences and interactions with everyone – doctors, nurses, paramedics, technicians, porters, receptionists; all of these overworked people have been professional and kind and reassuring.

We are not through this yet. The virus is cycling and neither of us has very much energy. We still have significant brain fog. We are very sad about losing our sense of taste/smell. I am still coughing and Doug has debilitating headaches. Doug has some extra complications we are trying to sort out. For almost three weeks I was unable to knit, and really struggled to read, or watch TV, or do much of anything. In the past few days, I have begun to pick up my knitting and have been watching Wimbledon, so definitely things are picking up. I managed to put in the ribbing on my Myrtle, so it is all done except for weaving in lots and lots of ends:

I don’t have the brain space for weaving in ends at the moment, but hopefully within a week or two, I will have a little more energy. I hope to bring you finished shots of this beautiful project soon. Thanks again!